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PRINCETON,  N.  J- 


Shelf.. 


BS  2601  .N6A 

Nicoll,  W.  Robertson  1851 

1923. 
The  Lamb  of  God 


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Y^i^^  y-X'^^'-va^-'y  --•v-^^;svi^ 


^be  1bou6ebolb  Xtbrar^  of  lEypoettion, 


THE    LAMB    OF    GOD. 


By  the  Same  Author. 


THE    INCARNATE    SAVIOUR 

A  LIFE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST. 
Large  Crown  Svo.     6s. 


Canon  Liddon. 

"  It  commands  my  warm  sympathy  and  admiration." 

British  Quarterly  Review. 

"  Full  of  literary  charm  and  scriptural  interest." 

Baptist  Magazine. 

"  The  style  is  so  clear  and  limpid,  and  moves  with  such  grace  and 
ease,  as  to  suggest  a  close  kinship  with  the  best  French  writers." 

Dr  John  Ker  in  Catholic  Presbyterian. 

"Contains  much  fresh  thinking  in  apt  and  beautiful  expression." 

London  Quarterly  Review. 
"One  of  the  best  books  on  the  subject  we  have  ever  read.     It  is 
invaluable  to  the  thoughtful   student,  and   should  be  mastered  and 
absorbed  by  all  young  ministers  of  all  churches." 

Scotsman. 

"  Mr  Nicoll  has  honestly  sought,  by  clear  expression  and   the 
results  of  reading,  to  add  intelligent  freshness  to  his  subject." 

Baptist. 

"A  book  of  studies  charged  with  fresh  thought,  and  yet  beautifully 
simple." 

Edinburgh  :  T.  &.  T.  Clark. 


THE   LAMB  OF  GOD, 

Bjpositions  in  tbe  Mritings  of 
St  5obn. 


BY 


W.  ROBERTSON  "NICOLL,  M.A., 

AUTHOR    OF    "THE     INCARNATE    SAVIOUR,"    ETC. 


NEW    YORK:    MACMILLAN    &    CO. 
1883. 


->        ^^^ 


PREFACE. 


Although  critical  discussion  would  obviously 
be  out  of  place  in  a  volume  like  the  present,  it 
is  perhaps  permissible  to  indicate  the  important 
bearings  the  subject  has  on  the  Johannine  con- 
troversy. The  figure  of  the  Lamb  holds  so 
prominent  a  place  in  the  fourth  gospel  that  it 
is  regarded  by  Baur  as  one  of  the  great  dog- 
matic points  in  the  interest  of  which  that  gospel 
was  penned,  and  for  the  sake  of  which  the 
writer  deliberately  changed  the  day  already 
known  in  the  church  as  that  of  the  Lord's 
Death.  This  fundamental  and  peculiar  con- 
ception of  the  fourth  gospel  also  rules  the 
Apocalypse ;  is  perhaps  the  main  figure ;  is 
associated  Avith  what  at  first  seem  startling 
incongruities ;  and  is  met  with  no  fewer  than 
twenty-seven  times.  Besides,  the  Saviour  is 
not  only  the  Lamb  but  the  slain  Lamb,  the 
word  used    signifying    sacrifice  —  a  conception 


VI  PREFACE. 

naturally  allying  itself  with  that  contained  in  the 
nineteenth  chapter  of  the  fourth  gospel,  where 
stress  is  laid  on  the  fact  that  blood  flowed  from 
Jesus  at  His  death.  The  whole  subject  is  dis- 
cussed by  Dr  Milligan  in  his  thoughtful  paper, 
"  St  John's  Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse"  {Con- 
tempoj'aiy  Revieiv,  Aug.  1871),  as  well  as  in  a 
series  of  papers  in  the  Expositor,  1882. 

The  various  English  and  foreign  commen- 
taries have  been  used  in  the  preparation  of  this 
little  book,  and  I  have  endeavoured  to  own 
my  main  obligations.  I  am  anxious  to  acknow- 
ledge my  great  indebtedness  throughout  the 
whole  volume  to  the  writings  of  Dr  Maclaren 
and  Dean  Church,  more  especially  the  former. 
So  far  as  I  am  aware  there  is  no  separate  work 
on  the  subject. 

Kelso,  /an.  1883. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I,  Holy,  Harmless,  and  Undefiled         .  i 

II.  The  Sin-Bearing  Lamb  ....  19 

III.  The  Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  Throne  37 

IV.  The  Lamb  opening  the  Sealed  Book  53 

V.  The  Warrior  Lamb        .       .        .        .  71 
VI.  The  Marriage  of  the  Lamb          .        .  89 

VII.  The  Wrath  of  the  Lamb       .       .        .  107 


I. 

HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 


Wrath  by  His  meekness, 
And  by  His  health  sickness, 
Are  driven  away 
from  our  immortal  day. 


I. 

HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

The  first  words  that  pointed  John  to  Christ 
were  those  of  the  Baptist — "  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 
The  profound  implications  that  lay  in  these 
words  were  probably  little  perceived  at  first,  but 
they  became  clearer  with  growing  years  and 
ripening  experience.  And  long  after  he  who 
had  delivered  the  message  was  lying  in  his 
bloody  grave,  after  the  death  on  the  cross, 
when  the  Evangelist  was  in  the  isle  that  is 
called  Patmos  for  the  word  of  God  and  the 
testimony  of  Jesus  Christ,  he  lifted  up  his  eyes 
from  the  rocks  around  him  and  the  tossing  sea 
that  girdled  them,  and  saw  in  the  depth  of  the 
sanctities  of  heaven  the  Lamb  as  it  had  been 
slain. 

He  found  no  greater  word  to  describe  the 
glory  of  the  noon  than  that  through  which  he 
had  seen  the  dawn.     It  was  the  same  light  in 


4  HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

its  zenith  as  when  it  first  greeted  him  through 
the  mist.  Surely  it  is  worth  while  to  investi- 
gate a  revelation  like  this,  which  was  as  much 
to  the  aged  seer  as  it  was  to  the  young  fisher- 
man. How  beautiful  is  a  life  of  which  the 
early  days,  the  middle,  and  the  latest  hold  the 
same  convictions,  only  growing  with  the  man's 
growth,  and  widening]  with  his  experience. 
How  beautiful  when  the  life  is  based  on  truths 
which  no  experience  can  overthow,  which  ex- 
perience only  renders  more  precious ;  and  how 
different  from  the  lives  of  men  who  flit  restlessly 
from  one  faith  to  another  and  find  no  abiding 
home.  It  is  beautiful  when  we  see  the  father 
and  the  young  man  and  the  child  bound  to- 
gether by  the  faith  which  goes  through  all 
the  stages  of  life,  the  end  circling  round  the 
beginning,  only  with  a  deeper  conviction  and  a 
stronger  love  at  last. 

To  understand  the  meaning  of  this  profound 
phrase  we  must  go  back  to  the  Old  Testament, 
in  which  the  mind  of  him  who  first  uttered  it 
was  steeped.  Perhaps  the  passage  which  was 
most  clearly  before  him  as  he  spoke  was  that 
in  the  climax  of  evangelical  prophecy  where 
Jesus  is  described  as  a  Lamb  led  to  the  slaughter,    "^ 


HOLY,   HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED.  5 

and  where  it  is  said  that  as  a  sheep  before  his 
shearers  is  dumb  so  he  opened  not  his  mouth. 
Forty  days  before  Christ  had  been  baptised, 
and  in  the  interval  John  had  no  doubt  been 
meditating  deeply  on  the  prophecies  that  an- 
nounced the  Messiah ;  and  this  would  stand 
more  clearly  before  his  mind  than  any.  Be- 
sides, through  those  days  and  before  them,  he 
had  been  hearing  countless  stories  of  grief  and 
sin  from  those  who  came  to  be  baptised  of  him  ; 
and  would  he  not  think  of  one  into  whose  ear 
sorrow  would  never  be  sobbed  in  vain — one 
who  was  to  deal  with  sin  adequately  and 
finally  by  taking  it  away  .''  "  He  was  wounded 
for  our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for  our 
iniquities,  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was 
upon  him,  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed," 

But  along  with  this  we  must  include  a  refer- 
ence to  the  Paschal  Lamb.  Few  thoughts  in 
John's  Gospel  are  more  distinct  than  that  of 
the  relation  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  Paschal 
Sacrifice  and  Feast.  The  Passover,  which  was 
the  most  conspicuous  symbol  of  the  Messianic 
deliverance,  was  not  far  off;  flocks  of  lambs 
were  passing  by  to  Jerusalem  to  be  offered  at 
the   coming    feast,    and    the    sight    may    have 


6  HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

brought  home  the  thought.  Further,  there  is 
no  difficulty  in  believing  that  the  forerunner, 
who  had  deeply  meditated  the  Messianic  pro- 
phecies and  the  meaning  of  the  sacrifices,  saw, 
with  prophetic  insight,  that  Christ  was  to  suffer, 
thus  standing  for  a  time  on  a  higher  level  than 
any  of  the  disciples,* 

We  find  in  the  expression  the  idea  of  sacri- 
fice central  to  the  Bible — the  fundamental 
thought  of  the  Christian  life — the  Alpha  and 
Omega  of  John's  experience  and  faith.  "  With- 
out expiation,  and  the  ideas  connected  with  it, 
what,"  says  Vinet,  "  is  Christianity  .-'  "  So  our 
object  is  to  show  the  foundation  and  meaning 
of  this  great  idea  of  sacrifice,  and  then  its  large 
unfoldings  as  we  find  them  in  the  Revelation  of 
St  John,  where  we  are  told  of  the  Lamb  en- 
throned, the  Lamb  opening  the  sealed  book, 
the  Lamb  making  war,  the  Lamb  leading,  and 
feeding,  and  lightening  his  people,  the  Lamb 
overwhelming  his  enemies  with  his  wrath. 

The  basis  of  all  is  found  in  the  words  of  the 
Apostle  Peter—  "  A  Lamb  without  blemish  and 

*  For  a  defence  of  the  Isaianic  reference  see  the  recent  ccm- 
mentaiy  of  Keil  (Leipzig,  iSSo).  The  other  view  is  defended 
in  the  thouglitful  commentary  of  Milligan  and  Moulton,  with 
which  compare  Westcott, 


HOLY,   HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED.  7 

without  spot ;  "  or,  as  it  is  phrased  by  the  writer 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  in  describing 
the  High  priest  who  became  us — "  Holy,  harm- 
less, and  undefiled."  The  ideas  brought  before 
us  by  words  like  these  are,  first,  Christ's  inno- 
cence and  gentleness :  and,  secondly,  the  bear- 
ing of  these  upon  His  sufferings  and  death. 


I.  The  innocence  of  Christ  signifies  that  He 
was  absolutely  free  from  every  taint  of  evil. 
He  was  not  only  free  from  all  evil,  he  was  full 
of  all  good.  When  we  speak  of  His  holi- 
ness we  point  to  the  positive  element — His 
possession  of  all  good.  When  we  speak  of 
His  innocence  we  lay  stress  rather  on  the  com- 
plete absence  of  evil  from  His  every  thought, 
word,  and  deed.  Even  those  who  make  it  often 
fail  to  understand  all  that  is  implied  in  this 
immense  claim.  It  means  that  the  boundary 
lines  between  right  and  wrong,  often  to  us  more 
or  less  obscured,  were  to  Him  always  as  clear 
as  noon.  The  wonderful  skill  with  which  He 
maps  out  the  frontiers  of  righteousness,  and  the 
nice  discrimination  with  which  He  goes  so  far. 


8  HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

and  no  farther,  is  the  perpetual  wonder  of  moral 
teachers.  It  signifies,  besides,  that  He  perilled 
His  whole  claim  upon  any,  even  the  minutest 
fact  of  His  life.  All  other  men,  even  the  best, 
are  only  right  on  the  whole,  and  we  are  content 
and  thankful  if  they  reach  that  point  of  ex- 
cellence. We  should  rightly  count  the  critic  no 
less  foolish  than  ungenerous  who  would  reject 
and  condemn  a  great  and  noble  character  be- 
cause of  the  flaws  and  errors  that  make  it 
human.  We  are  glad  to  accept  our  heroes 
with  far  greater  limitations  and  blots,  and  to 
overlook  even  much  shortcoming,  in  considera- 
tion of  much  attainment.  Our  temptation  is 
unconsciously  to  transfer  this  line  of  reasoning 
to  Christ,  and  to  look  suspiciously  upon  those 
who  claim  His  example  as  a  perpetual  rule, 
and  who  say  that  to  deny  His  perfection  in 
one,  even  the  least  point,  is  to  deny  it  in  all. 
But,  as  it  has  been  forcibly  said,  Christ  was 
either  sinless  or  sinful.  Between  sinlessness  and 
sinfulness  there  is  no  middle  term.  The  quan- 
tity of  sin  is  not  the  point  in  question ;  it  is  its 
existence.  Should  the  denier  be  able  to  make 
good  any  charge,  even  the  least,  against  the 
moral  perfection  of  Christ,  the  whole  scheme  of 


HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED,  9 

salvation  vanishes  like  a  dream,  and  He  Him- 
self needs  redemption,  instead  of  being  a  Re-     \-^ 
deemer  :    Our  faith  is  vain,  and  we  are  yet  in 
our  sins.* 

But  great  and  sweeping  as  this  claim  is, 
the  innocence  of  Christ  means  something 
more.  It  means  something  positive.  When 
we  speak  of  innocence  we  think  of  the  bloom 
and  fragrance  there  is  about  childhood — 
that  childhood  which  He  Himself  was  pleased 
to  make  a  type  of  man's  regained  Paradise, 
when  He  said — "  Except  ye  be  converted  and 
become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  in  no  wise 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  Innocence, 
it  has  been  said,  has  something  strange  and 
wonderful  about  it.  It  has  a  look  of  exile, 
as  of  something  heavenly  detained  in  slavery 
upon  earth,  a  look  of  peril  and  of  helpless- 
ness, such  as  we  sometimes  see  in  children.-f" 
This  spotless,  childlike  innocence  Jesus  the 
"  Eternal  Child  "  kept  to  the  very  last. 

This  innocence  was  not  ignorance.  With 
childhood  it  is;  and  men  justly  count  it  a  high 
crime  to  violate  the  sanctities  of  childhood.     To 

*See  J.  B.   Mozley,    "Of  Christ  Alone  Without  Sin,"  in 
Co7itemporary  Review,  March  186S,  p.  491. 
t  F.  W.  Faber. 


% 


lO      HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

break  in  upon  that  sacred  ignorance  which 
makes  the  sunshine  round  the  head  of  a  young 
child  ripple  into  a  softer  gold,  to  cause  one  of 
those  little  ones  to  stumble,  is  to  deserve  to  be 
thrown  with  a  mill-stone  round  one's  neck  into 
the  depths  of  the  sea,  and  this  in  the  judgment 
even  of  the  most  abandoned.  For  to  lose 
ignorance  is  to  lose  innocence.  The  evil  know- 
ledge lays  hold  of  something  evil  within,  and 
though  no  outward  transgression  may  follow, 
we  know  too  well  that  in  the  soul  a  battle  has 
been  fought  and  lost.  But  He  knew  all  things. 
He  speaks  with  a  strange  familiarity  of  vice 
and  crime.  He  knows  what  young  men  do 
when  they  leave  the  father's  house,  and  plunge 
into  transgression  in  a  strange  country.  He 
knows  how  they  feel  when  the  wild  pleasure 
thrills  them,  and  how  when  the  reaction  comes, 
when  the  money  is  spent  and  friendly  doors  are 
closed,  and  how  when  the  spirit  turns  faintly  to 
its  father  and  its  home.  He  knows  how  sinners 
entice,  and  how  the  son  consents.  All  these 
things  he  knows,  and  has  described  in  imperish- 
able words  ;  and  yet  the  bloom  of  his  innocence 
is  unsmirched  through  all. 

Neither  was  his  an  untried  innocence.     What 


^ 


HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED.        T  I 

wc  call  a  child's  innocence  is  never  of  course 
complete,  and  disappears  when  temptation 
comes  ;  and  the  prayer  for  childhood  and 
for  age  is — "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation." 
Christ's  sinlessness  did  not  imply  a  freedom 
from  the  burden  of  maintaining  a  contest  with 
evil.  But  it  implies  that  there  was  no  yielding 
in  the  contest.  He  met  Satan  in  conflict  face 
to  face  and  overthrew  him.  He  was  tried  in  the 
silence  of  his  spirit  all  through  his  life  with 
the  wiles  of  the  devil,  and  upon  the  cross  the 
enemy  was  there,  plying  him  with  the  old  de- 
ceits to  the  very  last.  And  yet,  sore  as  the 
temptation  was,  there  was  not  so  much  as  even 
the  least  compliance  in  thought,  and  all  the 
temptation  of  the  Wicked  One  no  more  defiled 
him  than  the  shadow  of  a  cloud  stains  the  snow. 

2.  The  image  of  the  Lamb  suggests  not  only 
the  innocence,  but  also  the  gentleness  of  Christ  ; 
"  Gentle  Jesus,  meek  and  mild." 

It  is  in  this  aspect  that  he  first  lays  hold  of 
us,  and  in  this  aspect  he  continues  most  clearly 
to  reveal  himself  This  gentleness  is  seen  both 
in  what  he  did  and  in  what  he  endured.  We 
know  how  gently  he  used  his  power  ;  with  what 
a  delicate  sympathy  he  conferred  his  gifts,  how 


12       HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

when  he  healed  the  leper  he  put  out  his  pure 
hand  and  came  near  the  need  that  he  might  re- 
lieve the  pain,  how  he  touched  the  little  children 
in  their  innocence,  and  the  harlots  in  their  filth, 
how  he  refused  to  be  the  judge  of  men  because 
he  had  come  to  be  their  Saviour.  But  that  is 
not  the  most  remarkable  aspect  of  his  gentle- 
ness. In  the  gentle  use  of  power  he  was  well 
skilled  through  his  long  rule  of  the  kingdom  of 
the  eternal  patience.  What  is  most  striking  and 
impressive  is  the  gentleness  with  which  he  en- 
dured suffering.  The  great  mystery  of  suffering 
came  up  in  his  history  in  its  sharpest  form. 
His  life  was  confessed  by  all  men  pure,  sinless, 
perfect  in  beauty,  and  yet  he  suffered.  The 
contradiction  rises  to  its  superlative  degree,  and 
we  stand  amazed.  Not  only  was  he  man,  but 
he  suffered  as  the  uncreated  and  eternal  Son  of 
God.  It  is  as  if  a  star  should  withdraw  its 
beams  and  forget  to  shine  that  he  should  pass 
through  an  experience  strange  and  awful  for  a 
man,  so  much  more  strange  and  mysterious  for 
God  incarnate.  Besides,  suffering  was  new  to 
him.  He  learned  obedience  not  as  we  do  in  the 
way  of  learning  to  exercise  a  disposition  which 
otherwise  is  not  ours — not  in  the  sense  of  having 


HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED.       I  3 

his  will  moulded  and  tempered  through  submis- 
sion. We  know  that  from  the  beginning,  before 
the  shadow  had  passed  over  him,  the  very 
inmost  of  his  will  was  in  harmony  with  the  will 
of  God.  But  that  inmost  will  needed  to  be 
wrought  out  in  life.  He  had  to  make  practical 
acquaintance  by  experience  with  the  act  of  sub- 
mission. He  had  to  learn  obedience  in  actual 
exercise,  and  the  discipline  through  which  he 
passed  was  infinitely  more  severe  than  ours. 
His  obedience  had  to  maintain  itself  in  the  face 
of  greater  and  greater  demands  upon  it ;  and  as 
he  had  to  meet  these  demands  rising  with  the 
rising  tide  of  things  which  he  suffered,  he 
entered  ever  more  deeply  into  the  experience  of 
what  obedience  was.* 

And  how  gently  he  bore  his  sufferings !  We 
remember  the  impressive  silence  which  he  main- 
tained before  the  furious  and  malignant  storm 
of  accusation  at  the  bar  of  Pilate.  We  remem- 
ber how,  amidst  a  series  of  insults  and  torture 
which  makes  us  shudder  to  read  of,  when  the 
thorns  were  crushed  into  his  brow,  and  the 
faded  scarlet  thrown  round  him,  and  the  reed 
put  into  his  hand  and  then  wrested  from  him 

*  Cf.  Davidson  on  Hebrews,  v.  8. 


14       HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

and  used  to  strike  him  again  and  again,  not  one 
word  of  reproach,  or  protest,  or  anger  escaped 
his  lips.  We  remember  "what  a  grace  he  had, 
even  in  his  dying  hour ; "  how  he  prayed  when 
the  nails  were  driven  through  His  hands,  "Father, 
forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do;" 
how  He  opened  Paradise  to  the  penitent  thief 
at  His  side ;  how  He  died  with  no  word  of  bit- 
terness upon  His  lips.  And  therein,  as  in  all 
His  life,  we  behold  His  exceeding  gentleness. 

This  gentleness  was  not  weakness,  for,  as 
suggestive  hints  tell  us  again  and  again,  there 
dwelt  in  Him  energies  which  could  have  routed 
and  destroyed  all  His  enemies.  And  He  was 
watched  by  legions  of  angels,  every  angel  with 
his  hand  upon  his  sword,  so  that  it  may  not  be 
too  much  to  say  that  His  difficulty  was  to  re- 
strain and  refrain  from  using  these  powers. 
His  gentleness  in  suffering  receives  a  new  mean- 
ing when  considered  as  the  gentleness  of  the 
strong  one  who  bore  not  by  the  constraint  of 
weakness  but  by  the  stronger  constraint  of  love. 

And  still  further,  this  gentleness  was  not  soft- 
ness of  temper,  not  moral  indifference  or  weak- 
ness. To  confound  the  majestic  and  solemn 
tenderness  of  Christ  with  weak  good  nature  is 


HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED.        I  5 

profoundly  to  misconceive  it.  The  Lamb  of 
God  has  seven  horns.  The  heat  that  destroys 
and  the  heat  that  quickens  both  come  from  one 
source.  His  grief  was  sometimes  mingled  with 
anger,  and,  when  need  was,  He  could  rebuke 
and  silence  those  who  opposed  Him.  But  this 
power  also  He  rarely  used,  and  the  image  of 
the  gentle  Christ  is  that  left  on  our  minds  after 
a  perusal  of  His  whole  life. 

IL 

The  innocence  and  gentleness  of  Christ,  on 
account  of  which  He  is  called  the  Lamb  of  God, 
help  us  to  realise  what  is  very  difficult  for  us  ade- 
quately to  conceive,  the  horror  of  His  sufferings. 
We  do  not  feel  as  we  should  the  sufferings  of 
Jesus,  partly  because  into  their  greatest  depths 
we  are  not  able  to  see  very  far,  and  partly  because 
in  this  world  of  sin  and  pain  it  is  so  much  a  matter 
of  course  that  a  man  should  suffer,  and  we  our- 
selves become  so  familiar  with  suffering  that  it 
is  hard  to  spare  thought  or  sympathy  for  those 
who  share  it  with  us,  however  great  their  share 
may  be. 

Every  one  who  comes  into  this  world  and 
seeks  a  career  there,  must  bear  his  part  of  the 


1 6       HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

ills  of  this  tried  life.  He  must  have  his  ex- 
perience of  the  shocks  and  overthrows  and 
strange  reversals  and  bitter  bereavements  of 
earth  ;  and,  unless  his  suffering  reaches  some 
unparalleled  height,  we  can  scarcely  spare  a 
thought  for  it.  And  so  it  is  that  it  has  been 
found  most  difficult  to  stimulate  our  dull  and 
selfish  imaginations  into  any  adequate  feeling 
about  the  suffering  of  Christ.  But  nothing  will 
help  us  more  to  throw  away  the  brazen  armour 
of  our  selfishness,  and  to  feel  how  terrible  an 
expression  of  human  sin  the  Cross  was,  as 
to  conceive  of  the  sufferer  as  the  Lamb  of 
God.  Men  must  be  strangely  hardened  and 
deadened  before  they  cease  to  respond  to 
the  suffering  of  a  helpless  and  innocent  being. 
Suffering  wantonly  and  purposelessly  inflicted 
on  dumb  and  helpless  animals  moves  in  minds 
not  altogether  devilish  an  instant  horror  and 
sympathy.  More  especially  when  those  who 
are  so  tortured  show,  as  they  sometimes  do, 
their  love  in  the  very  midst  of  their  agony,  do 
we  feel  the  dreadfulness  of  the  deed.  Those 
"  who  would  mangle  the  living  dog  that  had 
loved  them  and  fawned  at  their  knee,"  raise 
execration   in   the   hearts    even    of    the    most 


HOLY,   HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED.        I  7 

criminal.  That  an  innocent  and  unconscious 
child  should  be  put  to  torture,  is  an  idea  so 
sickening  that  we  cannot  dwell  upon  it.  The 
legend  of  one  such  deed  has  lingered  about  an 
English  town  for  hundreds  of  years.  Now,  we 
are  warranted  in  taking  those  ideas  and  trans- 
ferring them  to  Christ.  He  was  more  innocent 
than  any  child,  more  loving,  more  gentle,  and 
by  the  constraint  of  His  love,  more  helpless 
than  any  other  could  be.  And  it  was  He  whom 
men  chose  and  did  to  death  in  agony  and  in 
shame.  This  aspect  of  Christ's  suffering,  if  we 
dwell  upon  it,  may  make  us  feel  as  those  did 
who,  when  they  saw  it,  smote  their  breasts  and 
returned.  This  is  the  end  of  human  nature 
apart  from  God — to  nail  upon  the  cross  the  Son 
of  God  Himself;  and  in  this  crime  we  all  of  us 
had  a  share.  In  the  cross,  looked  at  from  this 
point  of  view,  we  have  the  culmination  and  the 
condemnation  of  human  guilt  ;  and  were  this 
the  only  point  of  view  from  which  we  could 
regard  it,  it  would  fill  us  with  horror  and 
despair. 

But  a  profounder  thought  leads  us  to  see  in 
the  death  of  the  Lamb  of  God  not  merely  the 
condemnation,  but  also  the  atonement  for  human 
B 


l8       HOLY,  HARMLESS,  AND  UNDEFILED. 

guilt.  He  died  in  the  fulness  of  power,  of  con- 
sciousness, and  of  love.  Viewed  from  the  human 
side  His  death  was  a  murder,  but  deeper  know- 
ledge reveals  it  as  the  determinate  counsel  of 
God,  and  the  expression  of  His  own  loving  will. 
There  is  more  in  the  Cross  than  at  first  we 
dreamt  of  If  it  opens  the  great  depths  of 
man's  sin,  it  opens  also  the  greater  depths  of 
God's  mercy. 

As  we  gaze  heart-stricken  on  the  Sufferer 
the  calm  lips  will  say  to  us  the  old,  old  words, 
"  Thy  sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven  thee  : 
go  in  peace." 


II. 


THE    SIN-BEARING    LAMB. 


Not  all  the  blood  of  beasts, 

On  Jewish  altars  slain, 
Could  give  the  guilty  conscience  peace, 

Or  wash  away  the  stain. 

But  Christ,  the  Heavenly  Lamb, 

Takes  all  our  sins  away  ; 
A  sacrifice  of  nobler  name. 

And  richer  blood  than  they. 

My  faith  would  lay  her  hand. 
On  that  dear  head  of  thine ; 

While  like  a  penitent  I  stand. 
And  there  confess  my  sin. 

My  soul  looks  back  to  see. 
The  burden  thou  didst  bear, 

When  hanging  on  the  cursed  tree, 
And  knows  her  guilt  was  there. 


11. 

THE   SIN-BEARING   LAMB. 

The  great  difference  between  Christianity  and 
other  religions  is  that  in  Christianity  the  work 
of  salvation  is  accomplished  by  God.  In  other 
religions  and  systems  of  moral  reformation  the 
work  of  emancipation  is  one  that  man  himself 
must  accomplish.  They  begin  by  telling  him 
what  he  has  to  do  to  avert  the  wrath  and  to 
win  the  favour  of  Deity.  They  differ,  indeed, 
in  their  requirements,  but  this  fundamental  idea 
is  common  to  every  one  of  them,  which  shows 
that  it  is  a  natural  and  congenial  thought  of  the 
human  mind.  The  true  religion,  on  the  other 
hand,  commences  by  contradicting  and  over- 
turning this  thought.  It  tells  us  that  salvation, 
so  far  from  being  a  work  of  man,  is  the  result 
of  a  long  and  arduous  work  of  sacrifice  accom- 
plished by  God  Himself.  It  tells  us  not  what 
man  has  to  do  to  win  God,  but  what  God  has 
done  to  win  man.      It  comes  to  him  not  as  an 


22  THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB. 

elaborate  code  of  rules  which  he  must  obey, 
but  as  a  free  gift  which  he  is  to  receive ;  and 
the  reason  why  so  many  fail  to  gain  salvation 
is  because  they  make  the  fatal  mistake  of  sup- 
posing that  it  is  something  that  they  must  work 
out,  instead  of  something  that  they  must  receive 
from  the  God  who  Himself  has  wrought  it  out. 

When  John  says,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God, 
which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,"  he  is 
manifestly  pointing  back  to  the  sacrificial  system 
which  pervades  the  Bible  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end.  He  is  thinking  of  the  great  process 
which  led  up  to  Christ.  He  remembers  how 
from  the  beginning  lambs  were  slain  continually 
— how  they  were  offered  up  by  Abel,  Noah,  and 
Abraham — how  the  altar  of  God  was  ever  red 
with  blood  ;  and  he  sees  Jesus  Christ  as  coming 
to  complete  these  sacrifices  and  terminate  them 
by  the  offering  of  Himself  So  to  understand 
the  force  of  the  passage  we  must  look  to  these 
sacrifices,  and  no  sufficient  explanation  of  them 
can  be  given  which  does  not  admit  that  they 
implied  the  substitution  of  the  victim  in  place 
of  the  offerer,  and  the  acceptance  of  a  satisfac- 
tion for  the  offence  •  in  other  words,  that  they 
were   both  vicarious   and    expiatory. ,  And   so 


THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB.  23 

Jesus  Christ,  as  a  sacrifice,  is  to  be  viewed  as 
satisfying  Divine  justice,  and  reconciling  men 
to  God.  We  must  indeed  exclude  the  idea^ 
that  He  produced  a  new  disposition  in  God 
toward  us.  But  what  He  did  was  to  reconcile 
the  Godhead  within  itself,  and  so  to  alter  the 
judicial  relations  of  God  toward  us  as  that  He 
can  deal  with  us  upon  a  new  footing.  So  much^ 
as  this  may  be  defined  as  the  teaching  of  Scrip- 
ture, from  which  we  learn  all  that  we  know  on 
the  subject,  in  contradistinction  to  what  we  may 
guess  or  suppose.  But  this  explanation  leaves 
great  mysteries,  which  we  could  explain  only 
if  it  were  possible  for  us  to  climb  the  heights 
and  fathom  the  depths  of  the  Divine  nature. 
A  consideration  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  sacrificial 
Lamb  may  show  us  both  what  we  can  under- 
stand, and  why  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  under- 
stand more. 


I.  Jesus  Christ  died,  but,  as  we  have  seen, 
not  for  His  own  sins.  He  was  the  Lamb  of 
God.  He  passed  pure  as  a  sunbeam  through 
all  the  defilement  of  the  world.     His  life  was 


24  THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB, 

like  a  spring  of  water  in  the  salt  sea,  throwing 
its  sweetness  over  the  surrounding  bitterness. 
He  appeared,  indeed,  in  the  likeness  of  sinful 
flesh,  even  as  the  brazen  serpent  was  made 
in  the  likeness  of  the  serpents  that  slew  the 
Israehtes.  "Man,"  says  Gregory,  "is  freed 
from  sin  by  Him  who  assumed  the  form  of  sin, 
and  was  made  after  our  fashion,  who  were 
changed  into  the  form  of  the  serpent."  But, 
as  there  was  no  venom  in  the  life-giving  image 
to  which  the  people  looked,  so  Jesus  Christ  had 
in  Himself  no  taint  of  sin.  He  was  holy,  harm- 
less, and  undefiled ;  and  His  death  cannot  be 
understood  except  as  a  death  for  the  sin  of 
others.  Had  He  not  been  sinless  His  life  would 
have  been  forfeited,  and  it  would  not  have  been 
in  His  power  to  offer  it  up  in  atonement. 
■^  2.  Jesus  Christ  died  according  to  the  appoint- 
ment of  His  Father,  They  do  fatally  miscon- 
ceive the  whole  evangelical  system  who  repre- 
sent the  heart  of  the  Father  toward  man  as 
different  from  the  heart  of  Christ.  "God  so 
loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
son."  \1  pleased  the  Father  that  in  Him  should 
all  fulness  dwell,  and  that  that  fulness  should 
y  be  opened   up   in  His  death.     It  pleased   the 


THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB.  25 

Lord  to  bruise  Him.  Christ  is  the  Lamb  which 
God  Himself  furnishes  for  sacrifice.  The  idea 
that  God  needed  to  be  mollified  or  appeased  by 
the  sacrifice  of  His  Son  is  a  heathenish  mis- 
conception. Whatever  love  dwelt  in  the  heart 
of  Christ  was  the  love  of  the  Father.  What- 
ever fulness  dwells  in  Him  to  forgive  and  to 
save  is  the  fulness  of  the  Father.  He  appeared 
to  do  the  will  of  God  when  He  came  into  the 
world  to  die. 

3.  Not  only  was  He  the  Lamb  appointed  by 
God — He  was  also  God  Himself.  He  took 
upon  Him  our  humanity,  but  He  took  it  into 
union  with  His  divine  nature.  It  was  through 
His  eternal  divine  nature*  that  He  offered 
Himself  to  be  a  sacrifice  to  God,  and  because 
it  was  so  the  sacrifice  was  efficacious.  He  took 
human  nature  at  His  incarnation  into  eternal 
union  with  the  Divine.  The  blood  which  He 
shed  on  the  tree  was  the  blood  not  merely  of 
the  Son  of  Mary,  but  of  the  Infinite  Being 
thus  united  to  a  created  form.  Hence  came  its^ 
efficacy.  The  blood  of  bulls  and  goats  secured  the 
outward  religious  position  of  the  offerer,  but  could 
not  put  away  sin,  could  not  operate  in  the  sphere 

*  Hebrews  ix.  13,  14. 


26  THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB. 

of  the  spiritual.  The  blood  of  the  eternal  Christ 
must  have  a  transcendent  power.  How  great 
we  cannot  tell.  The  thought  distances  and 
rebukes  reason.  But  it  has  power  to  put  away 
sin.  And  this  helps  us  to  see  why  the  doc- 
trine of  the  atonement  must  be  in  a  measure 
mysterious. 

Much  of  the  misconception  which  has  attended 
the  orthodox  theory  of  the  atonement  has  arisen 
from  the  fact  that  it  has  been  unconsciously 
discussed  on  a  Unitarian  theory  of  the  person 
Christ.  The  transcendent  mystery  which  we 
cannot  remove  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  have 
in  the  atonement  the  love  of  the  Three-one 
God  working  for  man ;  or,  as  it  has  been  ex- 
pressed, the  self-reconciling  of  the  Godhead 
with  itself,  or  an  action  of  the  Godhead  within, 
and  at  unity  with  itself  for  our  salvation. 

4.  The  Lamb  of  God  was  also  true  man. 
He  became  man  and  entered  into  true  sym- 
pathy with  all  our  sufferings.  He  was  bone  of 
our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  and  He  enters 
into  vital  union  with  those  whom  He  came  to 
save.  And  here  we  have  another  fruitful  source 
of  error  arising  from  the  question  of  the  atone- 
ment being  disposed  of  as  if  Christ  and  man 


THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB.  27 

N 

were  entirely  distinct,  whereas  there  is  be- 
tween the  Redeemer  and  the  redeemed  an 
essential  and  vital  unity.  The  Christ  on  the 
cross  is  not  some  miserable  man  suffering  for 
his  own  sins,  but  a  representative  of  mankind. 
He  is  the  Flower  and  Head  of  the  race,  the 
Representative  of  humanity,  the  second  Adam. 
He  becomes  one  with  those  who  have  seen 
Him  as  identified  with  them  in  a  manner  which 
finds  its  parallel  only  in  the  unity  of  the  Triune 
God.  Those  who  believe  in  Him  live  and  move 
and  have  their  spiritual  being  in  Him. 
•  5.  He  died  of  his  own  free  will.  From  the  very 
beginning  His  obedience  was  voluntary.  His 
incarnation  loses  its  whole  meaning  and  value, 
unless  we  understand  it  as  the  willing  entrance 
into  our  condition  for  our  sakes  of  the  Son  of 
God.  For  our  sakes  He  deigned  and  consented 
to  be  born,  even  as  for  our  sakes  He  deigned 
and  conseiited  to  die.  He  had  before  Him  all 
the  way  wfea*-  He  was  to  pass.throughw*  In  the 
very  beginning  of  His  ministry,  the  same 
thought  came  over  His  spirit  that  crossed  it  at 
the  end  ;  and  He  said  that  He  had  to  be  lifted 
up  even  as  the  serpent  was  lifted  up  in  the  wil- 

*  Cf.  Delitzsch,  "Jesus  and  Hillel,"  p.  184. 


28  THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB. 

derness.  This  gives  their  whole  meaning  to  His 
sufferings.  The  very  essence  of  sacrifice  hes  in 
the  spirit,  and  if  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  had 
rebelled,  or  if  He  had  been  but  the  feeble  victim 
of  an  enormous  wrong,  His  sacrifice  would  have 
been  of  no  value.  So  if  the  shocks  and  storms 
of  life  had  taken  Him  unawares,  as  they  take  us, 
the  meaning  of  that  life  would  not  have  been 
what  it  is.  But  we  know  that  He  counted  the 
cost — that  ^every  step  of  his  restless  wandering 
life  brought  him  nearer  Jerusalem,  where  the 
prophets  were  slain,  and  that  He  freely  willed 
to  die  for  us.  "  If  I  had  known,"  we  often  say, 
"what  I  had  to  pass  through,  I  never  could 
have  lived."  He  knew  it  all,  and  loaded  with 
the  weight  of  this  foreknowledge.  He  went 
through  it  for  our  sakes. 

6.  His  sufferings  were  in  a  peculiar  sense  the 
bearing  of  our  sins.  Looked  at  externally,  we 
could  not  assign  to  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  the 
pre-eminence  in  suffering.  Life  has  been  less 
sweet  and  death  more  bitter  from  that  point 
of  view  to  others  than  to  Him.  Others  have 
endured  greater  privations,  greater  physical 
tortures,  and  have  had  far  less  to  up-bear  and 
console  them  than  He  had  ;  but,  when  we  look 


THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB.  29 

at  the  matter  more  closely,  we  perceive  that 
His  sufferings  were  in  a  mysterious  sense  the 
endurance  of  sin.  Especially  we  see  this  in 
connection  with  His  death.  The  shuddering 
with  which  He  looked  forward  to  it  is  not 
explained  by  the  natural  shrinking  and  reluct- 
ance of  the  physical  frame.  "  We  know,"  it  has 
been  said,  "with  what  a  piercing  strength  the 
first  glimpses  of  a  coming  sorrow  shoot  in  upon 
us — how  they  checker  our  whole  life  and  over- 
shadow all  things,  how  sad  thoughts  glance  off 
from  all  we  say  and  do  and  listen  to,  how  the 
mind  converts  everything  into  its  own  feeling 
and  master  thought.  It  is  not  only  on  the 
greater  and  sad  occasions  that  our  afflictions 
overwhelm  us  ;  perhaps  our  keenest  sufferings 
are  in  sudden  recollections,  remote  associations, 
words,  tones,  little  acts  of  unconscious  friends. 
And  so  it  was  with  Jesus.  The  very  spike- 
nard had  in  it  the  savour  of  death."  "  She  hath 
done  it  against  my  burial."*  "  I  have  a  baptism 
to  be  baptised  with,  and  how  am  I  straitened 
till  it  be  accomplished."  The  shrinking  is  most 
manifest  at  Gethsemane.  There,  we  are  told, 
He  began  to  be  appalled,  stunned,  smitten  out 

*  H.  E.  Manning. 


30  THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB. 

of  Himself.  His  soul  was  sorrowful  all  round. 
His  straining  eyes  stretched  the  whole  horizon, 
and  found  it  one  unbroken  pall.  He  was  sorrow- 
ful even  unto  death,  as  if  one  more  weight  laid 
upon  the  quivering  breast  would  have  been  too 
much.  Great  drops  of  blood  fell  from  Him  in 
His  agony.  How  shall  we  explain  that  thunder- 
cloud of  darkness,  and  storm,  and  passion,  with 
its  flashing  lightnings,  in  which  His  soul  was 
wrapped  ?  Is  there  any  torch  which  throws  a  ray 
into  deep  gloom  save  that  which  was  put  in  our 
hands  by  the  prophet  when  he  says,  "  He  was 
wounded  for  our  transgressions,  He  was  bruised 
for  our  iniquities  .^"  The  heroic  calmness  and 
courage  which  marks  the  life  of  Christ  makes  it 
impossible  for  us  to  explain  His  fear  of  death 
in  any  other  way.     He  if  any  had  lived 

A  life  which  dares  send 

A  challenge  to  its  end, 

And  when  it  comes  say,  "  Welcome,  friend." 

He  who  the  noble  army  of  martyrs  praise  is  not 
less  brave  than  the  bravest  of  that  company ; 
and  yet  he  shrank  and  shuddered  as  none  of 
them  ever  did^  because  in  His  sufierings  He  • 
was  to  enter  a  deeper  depth  than  any  of  them 
could  ever  know. 


THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB. 


II. 


The  result  of  all  this  is,  that  the  suffering 
is  efficacious — "  He  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world."  The  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats  could 
never  take  away  sin,  but  this  man  has  offered 
up  one  sacrifice  for  sins  for  ever,  "  He  taketh 
away ;  "  it  is  not  merely  "  He  bears  the  sin  of  the 
world."  He  takes  it  away  by  taking  it  upon  Him. 
Many  an  unconscious  victim  had  shed  its  blood 
for  the  sin  of  the  world,  and  yet  the  sin  remained. 
Many  a  great  heart  had  borne  the  sin  of  the 
World,  and  had  broken  under  the  weight,  and 
still  the  sin  remained.  There  had  been  many 
that  palliated  the  sin  of  the  world,  and  yet  it 
remained.  It  is  possible  to  disguise  the  sin  of 
the  world,  to  drive  it  under  the  surface,  to  cover 
it  with  a  fair  exterior,  to  make  excuse  for  it,  but 
that  is  not  to  take  it  away.  It  is  possible  to 
fight  with  separate  sins  of  the  world,  and  in 
some  measure  to  master  them,  but  as  long  as 
any  sin  remains  the  sin  of  the  world  has  not 
been  taken  away.  But  Jesus  came  not  to  deal 
with  the  sins  of  the  world  but  with  the  sin  of  the 
world.  In  human  nature  strictness  in  one  direc- 
tion often  compensates  itself  by  laxity  in  an- 


2,2  THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB. 

other,  and  men  dream  that  they  have  overcome 
sin  when  they  have  gained  a  victory  in  some 
isolated  fragment  of  the  world  of  moral  duty. 
But  to  exchange  one  sin  for  another,  as  Samson 
the  Nazarite  did,  is  not  redemption.  Nor  is  the 
mere  escaping  from  the  penalty  of  sin  redemp- 
tion. Redemption  means  the  removal  of  sin, 
not  merely  of  the  punishment  of  sin  ;  and  He 
who  dealt  with  sin  effectually  by  taking  it  away 
was  Jesus  Christ,  and  Jesus  Christ  alone. 

The  szn  of  the  world,  not  the  sins.  The  vic- 
tory of  Christ  was  over  sin  as  a  unity,  the  whole 
corruption  of  human  nature  which  finds  expres- 
sion in  separate  sins.  The  sin  of  the  world  is 
regarded  as  heaped  up  in  one  tremendous  pile, 
and  that  pile  laid  upon  the  head  of  Christ. 
That  was  the  load  which  He  staggered  under. 
Think  of  the  sin  of  one  life,  the  sin  with  which 
it  is  born,  the  sins  of  childhood,  youth,  manhood, 
age ;  the  sins  of  broken  vows,  broken  oaths,  un- 
fulfilled duties  ;  and  then  multiply  that  one  life 
by  the  numbers  of  all  the  world,  and  consider 
what  a  foe  it  was  Christ  came  to  reckon  with, 
what  a  foe  it  was  that  He  overcame  in  the  body 
of  His  flesh  through  death. 

The  sin  of  tJie  world.     When  John  spoke  of 


THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB.  33 

the  world  he  manifestly  did  not  think  of  the 
extent  of  redemption.  He  did  not  mean  to  say 
that  the  work  of  Christ  was  effectual  for  all 
humanity,  and  that  all  sinners,  no  matter  how 
they  regarded  Christ  and  His  atonement,  had 
their  sins  removed.  He  was  thinking  of  the 
world,  not  in  its  extent  but  in  its  nature.  He 
thought  of  the  world  as  it  is  apart  from  and  hos- 
tile to  God,  and  the  sin  which  belongs  to  the 
world  as  such.  The  world  has  ceased  to  be  the 
expression  of  God's  mind  and  has  become  his 
rival.*  On  the  one  side  He  sees  the  world  with 
its  sin,  on  the  other  side  he  sees  God  with  His 
Lamb,  and  God  with  His  Lamb  is  able  to  meet 
the  world  with  its  sin.  The  remedy  is  sufficient ; 
the  obstacle  henceforth  lies  on  the  side  of  man 
and  not  upon  the  side  of  God.  We  believe  that 
our  Jesus  is  the  Saviour  of  the  whole  world. 
Although  only  one-third  of  the  human  race  is 
Christian  even  in  name,  we  know  that  He  is  the 
new  head  of  humanity,  not  of  England  or  of 
present  Christendom  only,  but  of  the  whole 
world — that  all  the  aimless  self-denial  of  the 
Buddhist,  all  the  Pantheistic  yearnings  of  the 
Brahmin,  all  the  loveless  theism  of  the  Moham- 

*  Cf.Westcott's  elaborate  note,  "Commentary  on  St  John,"  p.  31. 
C 


34  THE  SIN-BEARING  LAME. 

medan,  all  the  blind  gropings  of  the  rude  and 
unlettered  savage  will  find  their  real  rest  and 
satisfaction  in  Him. 

III. 

The  condition  of  salvation  is  to  behold ;  and 
if  we  consider  the  nature  of  salvation  we  see 
that  the  condition  is  not  arbitrary  but  lies  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  case.  If  the  Gospel  had 
been  an  elaborate  code  of  laws  it  would  not 
have  required  trust.  If  it  had  been  possible 
through  rites  and  ceremonies  to  save  the  soul, 
then  the  performance  of  these,  apart  from  the 
feeling  of  the  worshipper,  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient. But  since  salvation  is  vitally  and  essen- 
tially a  gift  that  God  is  willing  to  give  to  man, 
it  is  clear  that  if  man  be  free  everything  must 
depend  upon  man's  willingness  to  receive  the 
gift — that  is,  upon  his  faith ;  and  so  the  connec- 
tion between  faith  and  salvation  is  simply  in- 
evitable. The  look  is  the  look  of  longing,  of 
desire,  of  trust ;  such  a  look  as  the  dying  Israelite 
in  the  desert,  where  the  very  sand  round  him 
seemed  to  be  hatching  serpents,  gave  to  the 
brazen  serpent  lifted  on  high.  Then  new  life 
stole  into  the  languid  frame.     It  is  the  look  that 


THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB.  35 

takes  hold  of  Christ.  Appropriation,  said  Isaac 
Taylor,  is  the  secret  of  dying.  And  it  is  the 
secret  of  living  too.  We  take  hold  of  Him,  He 
takes  hold  of  us,  and  the  great  old  word  is  ful- 
filled— He  sent  down  from  above ;  He  drew  me; 
He  took  me  out  of  many  waters. 

Round  this  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  man's 
trust  and  hope  have  ever  gathered.  It  is  the 
resting-place  of  the  soul.  Denounced  as  im- 
moral by  those  who  do  not  understand  it,  not 
thoroughly  apprehended,  and  often  much  mis- 
apprehended, even  by  those  who  love  it,  it 
has  vindicated  itself  triumphantly  in  its  influ- 
ence on  faith  and  life  through  all  the  ages. 
It  will  increasingly  vindicate  itself  in  the  ex- 
perience of  those  who  lovingly  embrace  it. 
''While  there  is  life  in  thee,"  says  a  great 
teacher  of  the  Church,  "in  this  death  alone 
place  thy  trust,  confide  in  nothing  else  besides ; 
to  this  death  commit  thyself  altogether ;  with 
this  shelter  thy  whole  self ;  with  this  death 
array  thyself  from  head  to  foot.  And  if  the 
Lord  thy  God  will  judge  thee,  say,  Lord,  be- 
tween Thy  judgment  and  me  I  cast  the  death 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  no  otherwise  can  I 
contend  with  Thee.     And  if  He  say  to  thee, 


36  THE  SIN-BEARING  LAMB. 

Thou  art  a  sinner,  say,  Lord,  I  stretch  forth 
the  death  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  between 
my  sins  and  Thee.  If  he  say,  Thou  art  worthy 
of  condemnation,  say,  Lord,  I  set  the  death  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  between  my  evil  deserts 
and  Thee,  and  His  merits  I  offer  for  those 
merits  which  I  ouglit  to  have,  but  have  not 
of  my  own.  If  He  say  that  He  is  wroth  with 
thee,  say.  Lord,  I  lift  up  the  death  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  between  Thy  wrath  and  me."* 

*  Anselm  Admoni/io  Morienti. 


III. 

THE  LAMB  IN  THE  MIDST  OF 
THE  THRONE. 


Thou  whose  ways  we  praise, 

Clear  alike  and  dark, 
Keep  our  works  and  ways 
This  and  all  Thy  days 
Safe  inside  Thine  ark. 

Thou  whose  face  gives  grace 

As  the  sun's  doth  heat. 
Let  Thy  sun-bright  face 
Lighten  time  and  space 
Here  beneath  Thy  feet. 

Bid  our  peace  increase, 
Thou  that  madest  mom ; 

Bid  oppressions  cease ; 

Bid  the  night  be  peace  ; 
Bid  the  day  be  born. 


III. 

THE  LAMB  IN  THE  MIDST  OF  THE  THRONE. 

One  of  the  ground  thoughts  in  the  Book 
of  Revelation  is  that  Jesus  Christ,  who  died 
upon  the  tree,  sits  upon  the  throne  of  the 
universe.  We  find  the  thought  expressed  in 
varying  forms.  For  example,  we  are  told  that 
Jesus  is  the  First  and  the  Last,  the  origin  and 
the  goal  of  all  things.  We  are  told  that  He 
has  the  key  of  David,  an  expression  signifying 
absolute  power  and  irresistible  will.  We  read 
that  His  feet  are  as  fine  brass,  describing  His 
sovereign  march  over  the  fields  of  life.  But 
the  clearest  expression  of  the  thought  is  the 
phrase  which  we  have  chosen  as  the  heading 
for  this  chapter,  in  which  Jesus  Christ  the 
Lamb  as  it  had  been  slain,  is  represented  as 
seated  on  the  central  throne  of  the  universe, 
and  receiving  the  praises  of  the  various  orders 
of  creation.     This  great  thought  may  be  viewed 


40  THE  LAMB  IN  THE  MIDST 

under  varying  aspects,     Jesus  Christ  rules  the 
universe  as  Creator,  Lord,  and  Reconciler. 


1. 

He  rules  it  as  the  Creator.  All  things, 
according  to  the  uniform  doctrine  of  Scripture, 
were  made  by  Christ.  Whether  there  be  thrones, 
or  dominions,  or  principalities,  or  powers  ;  what- 
ever orders  of  being  may  exist,  these  and  the 
worlds  they  people  came  from  His  creative 
mind  and  His  plastic  hand. 

He  Himself  was  the  anticipation  of  creation. 
In  the  remarkable  prefiguration  of  Christ  in 
the  Book  of  Proverbs,  Wisdom  is  made  to  say, 
"  I  was  set  up  from  everlasting,  from  the  be- 
ginning, or  ever  the  earth  was.  When  there 
were  no  depths  I  was  brought  forth,  when 
there  were  no  fountains  abounding  with  water. 
Before  the  mountains  were  settled,  before  the 
hills  was  I  brought  forth."  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
image  of  the  invisible  God  in  a  sense  which 
does  not  depend  upon  the  Incarnation,  and 
which  does  not  vanish  with  earth  or  time,  but 
which  remains  when  the  veils  of  flesh  and  sense 
are  lifted,  and  we  see  face  to  face.      The  ab- 


OF  THE  THRONE.  4 1 

solute  invisible  God  no  man  can  see,  save  as 
He  is  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ.  This  Christ 
was  the  prophecy  of  creation,  and  He  Himself 
fulfilled  the  prophecy.  The  creating  power 
passes  through  Christ  as  its  medium — "With- 
out Him  was  not  anything  made  that  was 
made."  All  the  products  of  nature  are  from 
His  hand  ;  from  Him  all  the  terms  of  crea- 
turely  existence  take  their  rise,  and  of  all  life 
in  its  lowest  as  well  as  in  its  highest  forms.  He 
is  the  Distributor  and  Giver ;  so  that  in  a 
manner,  for  all  creatures,  to  live  is  Christ, 
whether  they  acknowledge  it  or  not. 

How  much  needed  is  this  great  and  half- 
forgotten  truth  in  days  when  men  soar  and 
roam  through  the  universe,  and  find  it  empty 
of  God,  when  everything  spiritual  and  divine 
is  said  to  be  vanishing  from  the  world  before 
the  march  of  Science.  Nothing  can  be  sadder 
than  to  wander  through  Nature  and  find  it 
tenantless.  But  how  different  when  we  render 
to  Christ  the  things  that  are  Christ's  in  it 
all.  There  is  nothing  created,  said  Goethe, 
j-  so  mean  and  trifling  that  it  is  not  a  thought 
of  God.  But  the  more  beautiful  and  tender 
truth  is  that    everything   created  is  a  thought 


42  THE  LAMB  IN  THE  MIDST 

of  Christ,  meant  to  lead  us  straight  to  him. 
We  are,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  swayed  by 
the  influences  of  our  time.  Nature  often 
seems,  even  to  the  Christian,  very  stern  and 
pitiless.  It  is  blessed  to  be  able  to  see'  in  it 
all  proofs  of  the  thought  and  expressions  of 
the  mind  of  him  who  is  not  only  Creator  but 
Redeemer. 

II. 

Not  only  is  Jesus  Christ  the  creator  of 
nature,  but  He  holds  it  together.  By  Him  all 
things  consist,  and  so  of  all  the  unconscious 
forces  in  the  world.  He  is  Lord  ;  and  those  who 
wrote  over  the  grave  of  one  killed  on  the  Rififel- 
horn  the  words,  "  It  is  I,  be  not  afraid,"  under- 
stood in  whose  hands  are  all  the  powers  of  the 
Universe  that  seem  so  blind  and  unreined.  But, 
putting  it  more  generally,  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
Lord  of  providence — the  true  King  with  plenary 
power.  It  is  He  who  rules  over  the  evolution 
of  events  and  the  disclosing  of  the  epochs  in 
the  world's  history. 

There  is  much  to  confirm  the  thought  which 
has  visited  all  in  hours  of  gloom,  that  history 
is  nothing  more  than  a  shifting  phantasmagoria 


OF  THE  THRONE.  43 

of  passions  and  desires.  Sometimes  men  seem 
to  be  flung  together,  a  rude  and  chaotic  mass 
of  creatures,  who  fight  and  crawl  over  each 
other,  and  die,  and  are  laid  in  the  hopelessness 
of  a  beast's  grave.  Sometimes  history  seems  no 
more  than  a  series  of  petty  stage-plays,  without 
connection,  and  leading  to  no  issue.  But  even 
sceptical  thinkers  admit  the  organic  unity  of 
all  history.  Only  to  many  each  event  is  but  a 
link  in  the  long  chain  of  the  harmony  of  the 
universe ;  to  such  "  the  organic  development  of 
history  will  mean  the  unbroken  sweep  of  natural 
law,  without  one  breath  of  the  creative  spirit 
from  on  high,  while  to  a  higher  school  of 
thought  the  one  purpose  of  history  is  the  pur- 
pose of  everlasting  love  worked  out  in  and 
through  human  personality  by  a  personal  re- 
deeming God."*  We  see  above  it  all  the  throne 
where  the  King  sits,  who  holds  all  things  in  His 
hand  and  guides  them  according  to  the  purposes 
of  changeless  love.  The  true  exposition  and 
idea  of  history  are  to  be  found  in  the  kingdom 
of  redemption. 

*  Dr  Robertson  Smith  in  "  British  Quarterly  Review,''  April 
1870,  p.  314. 


44  THE  LAMB  IN  THE  MIDST 


III. 

Jesus  Christ  reigns  as  the  Reconciler.*  Old 
divines  were  wont  to  distinguish  between  two 
kingdoms  of  Christ — the  one  inalienable,  which 
He  possessed  as  the  eternal  Son  of  the  Father, 
and  the  other  given  to  Him  as  Mediator  by  the 
Father,  and  delivered  over  to  the  Father  in  the 
end.-f-  The  distinction  is  a  real  one,  and  is 
kept  in  view  in  what  we  say.  Jesus  Christ 
rules  not  only  as  Creator  and  Lord,  but  as 
the  Reconciler  of  the  universe  to  God. 

I.  In  the  full  and  deep  sense,  reconciliation 

*  In  the  recent  life  of  Sir  William  Rowan  Hamilton,  the 
illustrious  mathematician,  p.  465,  the  following  remarkable 
statement  occurs  : — Others  ,  .  .  have  been  compelled'  to 
acknowledge  mysteries  of  reason  which  prepare  for  and  har- 
monize with  the  mysteries  ascribed  to  religion  by  the  Christian 
Church  ;  they  have  felt  that  the  Incarnation  and  Passion  are 
not  incredible,  to  those  who  believe  and  meditate  on  the  earlier 
mystery  of  creation,  that  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  one  are 
the  same  in  kind  as  the  mysteries  which  beset  the  other  ;  that 
in  the  region  of  philosophical  thought  an  acting  is  a  suffering 
God,  and  that  whatever  inclines  a  commencing  inquirer  to  reject 
as  absurb  a  belief  in  a  "  Lamb  slain  before  the  foundation  of 
the  world,  the  same  principle  if  pursued  into  its  philo- 
sophical consequences  would  lead  to  rejecting  the  belief  of  any 
personal  God  at  all.'' 

+  Compare  the  singularly  clear  and  instructive  discussion  in 
George  Gillespie's  "Aaron's  Rod  Blossoming,"  p.  203,  &c. 


OF  THE  THRONE.  45 

can  only  be  a  reconciliation  of  men  and  spirits. 
Only  spirits  can  love  and  hate,  only  spirits  can 
be  turned  from  hate  to  love ;  and  the  great 
work  that  Jesus  does  as  Reconciler — that  which 
is  most  vital  to  us,  and  at  the  same  time  most 
intelligible  —  is  the  work  which  He  does  in 
bringing  back  those  who  were  rent  and  sun- 
dered from  God  by  wicked  works  to  their  soul's 
true  rest  and  home.  The  carnal  mind  is  enmity 
against  God ;  not  indeed  that  the  enmity  is 
always  consciously  felt,  nor  that  it  always  ex- 
presses itself  in  blasphemy  and  defiance.  Yet 
einmity  it  is,  as  all  honest,  thoughtful  people 
will  admit.  At  the  very  best,  God  is  not  in 
all  our  thoughts  ;  at  the  very  best  there  is  a 
deep  dissonance  between  our  thoughts  and  the 
thoughts  of  God  ;  at  the  very  best  we  do  not 
glorify  Him  in  our  bodies  and  spirits  which 
are  His,  There  is  between  us  and  Him  a  deep 
gulf — how  deep  and  broad  we  cannot  tell, 
only  it  seems  deeper  and  broader  the  more  we 
look  into  it ;  and  to  bridge  that  gulf,  and 
bring  us  back  again  to  God  is  the  work  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Lamb,  As  we  saw,  He  recon- 
ciles us  in  the  body  of  His  flesh  through  death. 
It  was  part  of  the  reconciling  process  that  He 


46  THE  LAMB  IN  THE  MIDST 

should  become  man,  and  share  in  the  experi- 
ences of  humanity.  But  this  alone  was  not 
enough.  It  was  through  death,  through  the 
bowing  of  His  head  to  the  last  enemy,  through 
His  victory  over  death  and  the  grave  that  He 
made  it  possible  for  the  old  fellowship  between 
man  and  God  to  be  renewed,*  and  so  in  a  great 
and  noble  sense  He  is  King  over  the  higher 
universe  of  redeemed  souls — redeemed  by  His 
blood,  who  offer  up  to  him  intelligent  and 
conscious  allegiance,  and  who  bear  testimony 
that  through  His  work  they  have  been  brought 
back  to  themselves  and  their  Father. 

2.  But,  as  we  are  taught^  there  is  a  further 
reconciliation.  Jesus  Christ  reconciles  not  only 
men,  but  all  things  on  earth.  The  reconciliation 
is  in  a  sense  over  and  done  with.  It  lies  in  the 
past,  however  it  may  be  appropriated  and 
worked  out  in  the  future.  The  universal  re- 
conciliation of  all  things  in  Christ  affirmed  by 
Paul,-f-  cannot  be  said  to  bear  upon  the  question 
whether  or  not  at  some  point  in  the  future  all 
intelligent  creatures  will  consciously  love  and 

*  See  I  John  iii.  5,  as  showing  that  the  redemptive  efficacy  of 
Christ's  work  is  to  be  found  in  His  whole  life  crowned  by  His 
Death. 

t  See  Col.  i.  19,  20,  &c. 


OF  THE  THRONE.  47 

serve  God.  But  it  cannot  mean  less  than  this, 
that  the  influence  of  the  cross,  in  ways  we  do 
not  understand,  is  felt  all  over  the  creation — 
that  the  influence  goes  into  heights  and  depths 
beyond  our  ken.  It  cannot  mean  less  than  this, 
that  nature  itself,  over  which  a  deep  shadow 
has  passed  through  the  sin  of  man,  shall  find 
that  shadow  vanish  to  return  no  more.  And 
here  we  are  on  ground  where  speculation  is 
vain.  We  deal  with  matters  in  which  Scripture 
is  our  only  teacher,  and  we  find  in  Scripture 
intimations  which  strangely  recalLthe  latest 
utterances  of  science  about  the  imperfection 
and  inadequacy  of  nature.  "  The  creature  was 
subject  to  vanity,  not  willingly,  but  by  reason  of 
Him  who  hath  subjected  the  same  in  hope; 
because  the  creature  also  shall  be  delivered 
from  the  bondage  and  brought  into  the  glorious 
liberty  of  the  children  of  God."  And  then  the 
mystery  which  so  shadows  all  its  beauties  will 
end,  all  things  being  reconciled. 

3.  Still  more  unfamiliar  and  strange  is  the 
thought  that  Jesus  Christ  the  Lamb  is  the 
Reconciler  of  things  in  heaven.  How  can  those 
who  have  never  fallen,  who  have  never  left  the 
light,  need  to  be  reconciled  to  a  God  from  whom 


48  THE  LAMB  IN  THE  MIDST 

they  have  never  been  alienated  ?  And  here 
again  it  is  obvious  that  the  word  reconciliation 
is  not  used  in  its  full  sense.  Still  it  is  clearly- 
taught  that  all  orders  of  spiritual  being  are 
brought  near  to  God  through  the  work  of 
Christ.  The  angels  in  their  errands  to  the 
world  have  been  perplexed  by  its  misery  and 
sin.  The  angels  ministered  to  the  Son  of  God 
in  the  days  of  His  flesh,  and  sustained  Him 
in  His  agonies.  In  the  cross  of  Christ  the 
very  depths  of  the  Divine  nature  have  been 
unveiled — depths  of  yearning,  self-  sacrificing 
tenderness  which  never  otherwise  would  have 
been  revealed  to  angels ;  and  thus  we  read  that 
into  the  mysteries  of  redemption  they  desire  to 
look.  The  word  "  look  "  means  a  penetrating 
intense  gaze.  It  is  the  word  used  to  describe 
the  sharpened,  eager  wistfulness  with  which  the 
women  looked  into  the  empty  tomb,  and  the 
statuesque  unwavering  gaze  of  the  cherubim 
on  the  mercy-seat.  And  now  the  way  and  the 
end  of  the  Divine  love  have  been  made  plain  to 
them,  and  they  stand  nearer  to  God  than  ever 
before. 

So,  then,  we  perceive  the  cross  of  Christ  is  the 
centre  of  the  universe ;  and  thus  we  read  that 


OF  THE  THRONE.  49 

the  living  creatures,  the  representatives  of  crea- 
tion, the  elders  who  represent  the  Church  and 
the  angels  who  represent  the  higher  order  of 
spiritual  being,  burst  out  together  into  the  great 
shout  of  triumphal  praise  to  the  Lamb  that  was 
slain,  who  is  worthy  to  receive  power,  riches,  and 
honour,  glory  and  blessing.  And  so  all  His 
many  crowns  encircle  the  wreath  that  wounded 
Hjm.  The  Lamb  as  it  had  been  slain  sits  in 
the  midst  of  the  throne. 

Another  aspect  of  Christ's  kingly  work,  which 
we  propose  to  treat  in  another  chapter,  is  His 
punitive  and  destructive  energy,  which  will  end 
at  last  in  the  disablement  and  abasement  of  all 
hostile  powers.  They  will  be  put  beneath  His 
feet.  On  the  other  side  of  the  advent  there 
may  be  a  period  of  conflict  with  a  succession  of 
evil  dominations.  How  distant  the  issue  may 
be  we  cannot  tell,  but  that  period  too  will  close 
in  His  complete  victory ;  and  then  the  revolt 
will  be  finally  quelled,  and  the  reign  of  Christ  as 
Mediator  will  come  to  an  end.  "  The  Son  Him- 
self, also,  shall  be  made  subject  to  Him  that 
did  put  all  things  under  Him  that  God  .may  be 
all  in  all."  * 

*  I  Cor.  XV.  28. 
D 


50  THE  LAMB  IN  THE  MIDST 

Christ,  as  it  were,  had  authority  given  to  Him 
by  His  Father  to  go  forth  and  quell  the  insur- 
rection. So  long  as  the  rebellion  lasts  the  Son 
of  the  King  stands  in  the  front  of  the  fight.  He 
leads  the  troops.  He  commands  all  operations 
till  the  final  victory  ;  but  when  that  comes  He 
takes  the  kingdom  He  has  won  and  gives  it  to 
His  Father,  not  quitting  the  throne  where  God 
and  the  Lamb  sit  in  indissoluble  unity,  but 
ruling  as  the  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity  with 
the  Father  and  the  Spirit,  God  being  all  in  all. 

We  conclude  with  two  practical  reflections. 
We  have  seen  that  all  the  universe  and  its  forces 
are  being  administered  for  purposes  of  redemp- 
tion. The  Lamb  rules  and  He  rules  as  the  </■ 
Lamb.  How  calming  to  feel  this,  to  look  up 
from  the  turmoil  of  this  visible,  flaring,  and 
lying  world — from  the  shows  and  shams  and  the 
tinted  scene  of  the  theatre  ;  from  all  in  life  that 
startles  and  appals,  to  Him  who  sits  above  it 
all.  From  Him  all  things  proceed,  and  to  Him 
they  return  in  circular  flow.  The  shadows  are 
all  passing ;  the  reality  is  behind.  Nothing 
lasts;  our  trials  are  all  hasting  away  to  oblivion; 
let  the  wind   rave  as  it  will,   we  look  at  the 


OF  THE  THRONE.  5  I 

Christ  who  abides.  How  small  all  our  conflicts 
and  ambitions  seem  to  be,  how  transient  and 
easily  borne  our  sorrows,  when  we  look  up  as 
John  looked  from  the  rock  and  the  wild  waters 
to  the  serene  King,  against  whose  changeless 
purpose  all  the  waves  of  time  and  circumstance 
break  in  vain. 

We  have  seen  Christ  as  the  Reconciler  moving 
by  the  influences  that  streamed  from  His  Cross 
all  the  universe  in  its  heights  and  depths.  There 
is  a  sense  in  which  we  must  be  moved  by  that 
cross  whether  we  will  or  no.  Hostile  or 
friendly  we  must  yield  to  it.  But  what  will  it 
avail  us  to  be  laid  prostrate  beneath  His  feet  in 
the  day  of  a  triumph  which,  had  we  willed  it,  we 
might  have  shared  .-'  What  will  it  avail  us  that 
all  the  universe  is  tied  with  blood-red  silken 
cords  to  His  Cross  if  we  are  trampled  beneath 
His  feet  as  ashes.  Let  us  see  that  we  crown 
Him  as  King  by  the  willing  and  full  surrender 
of  heart  and  intellect,  and  conscience  and  life, 
to  His  command.  "We  are  ambassadors  for 
Christ ;  and  as  though  God  did  beseech  you  by 
us,  we  pray  you,  in  Christ's  stead,  be  ye  recon- 
ciled to  God." 


IV. 

THE    LAMB    OPENING    THE 
SEALED  BOOK. 


Sometimes  still 
I  come  here  for  a  little,  and  speak  a  word 
Of  peace  to  those  who  wait.    The  slow  wheel  turns, 
The  cycles  round  themselves  and  grow  complete, 
The  world's  year  whitens  to  the  harvest  tide, 
And  one  word  only  am  I  sent  to  say 
To  those  dear  souls  who  wait  here,  or  who  now 
Breathe  earthly  air — one  universal  word 
To  all  things  living,  and  the  word  is  Love. 


IV. 

THE  LAMB  OPENING  THE  SEALED  BOOK. 

We  have  looked  on  the  steadying  vision  of  the 
Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  throne,  holding  the 
sceptre  and  controlling  the  forces  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  we  have  viewed  Him  as  Lord  of  nature, 
providence,  and  the  higher  universe  of  redeemed 
souls ;  we  have  seen  how  such  a  thought  is 
fitted  to  thrill  and  soothe  us,  and  yet  we  desire 
something  more.  God  tells  us  nothing  about 
Himself  merely  to  gratify  our  curiosity.  It  is 
a  principle  of  revelation  that  its  light  is  a  light 
to  guide  the  feet.  God  teaches  us  not  in  order 
that  we  may  know,  but  in  order  that  we  may 
do.  There  is  nothing  given  merely  to  make  us 
wise,  but  all  knowledge  is  bestowed  to  make  us 
good.  Revelation  is  not  a  mass  of  theories  and 
principles,  but  the  knowledge  of  His  will ;  and 
hence  it  is  that  much  mystery  and  darkness  is 
left,  and  will  be  left.  Many  questions  un- 
answered, and  many  problems  unsolved — these 


56  THE  LAMB  OPENING 

exist,  and  will  exist.  Only  there  are  mysteries 
so  terrible  that  we  can  hardly  live  and  work 
without  some  rays  of  light  on  them.  The 
burden  of  the  unintelligible  world  would  be  too 
heavy  were  there  nothing  to  relieve  it ;  and  so 
we  are  told  in  a  sublime  vision  that  the  Lamb 
of  God  opens  the  seven-sealed  Book  of  God's 
purposes  and  man's  destinies,  and  our  tears 
over  the  mystery  of  things  are  to  be  dried,  and 
our  complaints  turned  into  praise  at  that  great 
sight.  It  is  foreign  to  our  purpose  to  enter  into 
the  details  of  apocalyptic  interpretation,  suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  book  contains  the  key  to  the 
true  knowledge  of  life,  and  that  He  who  opens 
it  is  the  Lamb. 


I.  First  of  all,  we  have  the  mystery  of  nature. 
There  are  moods  and  aspects  in  which  nature 
seems  full  of  the  goodness  of  God.  Look  on  a 
summer  day  at  the  quiet  meadows,  the  nestling 
homes,  the  delicious  haze  in  which  all  is  wrapt, 
and  the  whole  fair  land  seems  a  haunt  of  peace 
ancient  and  undisturbed.     Listen  to  the  cheerful 


THE  SEALED  BOOK.  57 

hum  that  rises  from  animated  creation,  happy 
in  so  fair  a  home,  and  you  are  inclined  to  echo 
the  saying,  "  It  is  a  happy  world  after  all." 
The  general  tendency  of  Christian  men  till 
recently  was  to  maintain  that  nature  illustrated 
perfectly  the  wisdom  and  the  goodness  of  God. 
The  exquisite  skill  with  which  her  work  was 
finished,  and  her  instruments  adapted  for  their 
purpose,  the  radiant  blossoms  of  spring,  the 
glories  of  summer,  the  golden  treasures  of 
harvest,  the  lavish  ministration  to  man's  sense  of 
beauty  as  well  as  to  his  material  needs — these 
were  dwelt  upon  to  the  exclusion  of  other 
sterner  aspects.  Of  late  years,  however,  various 
tendencies  have  opened  men's  eyes  to  facts 
old,  indeed,  and  always  partially  known,  but 
never  set  in  so  clear  a  light  as  now.  We  see 
how  the  east  wind  blights  the  blossom  ;  how 
the  rain  destroys  the  harvest ;  how  the  noblest 
and  sublimest  scenes  of  nature  have,  as  the 
inevitable  accompaniments  of  their  beauty, 
misery  and  pain.  We  find  always  imperfec- 
tions in  the  most  exquisite  and  skilful  creation ; 
the  ideal  is  never  reached ;  nothing  perfectly 
attains  and  expresses  the  end  aimed  at.  When 
we  look  below  the  surface  we  see  how,  under 


5^  THE  LAMB  OPENING 

all  the  beauty,  there  is  the  tumult  of  the  con- 
test— how  the  lowest  forms  of  life  devour  and 
are  devoured,  how  nature  is  red  in  tooth  and 
claw.  We  perceive  that  the  law  of  life  is  a  law 
of  struggle  —  struggle  in  which  innumerable 
individuals  and  species  are  blotted  from  the 
book  of  being.  We  perceive  that  the  whole 
lower  world  is  full  of  cruelty,  full  of  acts  of 
violence — one  individual  preying  upon  another. 
We  see  how  the  highest  forms  of  animate  crea- 
tion are,  in  their  turn,  subdued  and  oppressed 
by  man,  whose  sin  has  brought  such  misery  to 
his  humble  friends,  and  has  cast  so  dark  a 
shadow  over  all  the  fields  of  life.  A  deeper 
study  shows  us  that  the  first  glance  was  super- 
ficial, and  that  nature  is  full  of  imperfection 
and  pain. 

2.  And  if  the  mystery  of  nature  be  great,  no 
less  terrible  is  the  mystery  of  history.  John 
wrote  these  words  in  a  day  of  storm  and  earth- 
quake, a  day  of  overthrow  and  catastrophe  such 
as  the  moral  world  had  never  before  seen.  He 
wrote  in  the  age  of  slavery.  It  was  the  age  of 
the  amphitheatre.  It  was  the  age  of  blood  ; 
when  life  was  hard,  fierce,  brutal  —  full  of 
savagery  and  pain.     It  was   the  age  of  war  ; 


THE  SEALED  BOOK.  59 

the  world  was  filled  with  terror  and  massacre. 
It  was  the  age  of  famine,  when  people  died  in 
thousands,  when  the  supplies  of  life  were  easily 
and    often    stopped,  when   sights    of  nameless 
horror  had  been  witnessed  in  the  endeavour  to 
preserve   existence — a   dark   and   tragic   time, 
leaving    lurid    ineffaceable   tints  on  the  pages 
of  the   book   of    Revelation.       And   yet,    was 
it  so  much  more  terrible  than  other  times  that 
have  been  ?     The  good  old  times — we  speak  of 
these ;  but  we  know,  when  we  look  soberly  at 
the  matter,  that  they  never  existed.      The  past 
was  even  more  full  than  the  present  of  misery 
in  its  various  and  complicated  forms,  and  it  is 
only  because  the  cries  of  pain  have  died  and  the 
scenes   of  woe  are   veiled    that    our   imagina- 
tion   has  liberty  in   the  far  off  distance,   and 
paints  what   should   have  been,  but   was   not. 
Famine,  war,  disease — we  toss  the  mere  words 
about  and  talk  of  them  in   a  wholesale  way. 
But  let  any  one  take,  for  example,  the  Inquisi- 
tion, and  seriously  investigate  all  that  is  covered 
by  that  word,  and  this  vague  way  of  looking  at 
things  will    disappear,  and    he   will    come   to 
understand  how  hard  of  solution  is  the  problem 
of  history. 


6o  THE  LAMB  OPENING 

3.  And  is  the  mystery  of  the  present  much 
less  great  ?  Something  has  been  accomplished, 
but  how  much  remains  unchanged  and  un- 
removed  ?  How  full  the  world  is  of  blood,  of 
misery,  of  poverty,  and  despair.  Could  one 
have  believed  that  such  scenes  as  have  been 
witnessed  in  the  wars  of  the  last  decade  could 
ever  have  returned  ?  They  seem  like  a  feverish 
dream,  the  torture,  the  cruelty,  the  massacre, 
the  brutal  defilement  of  the  bodies  of  helpless 
Christian  women,  which  are  temples  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  And  even  when  the  more  terrible 
convulsions  of  society  cease  for  a  time,  how 
awful  are  the  miseries  that  go  on  unthought  of, 
and  unrelieved  ;  the  frightful,  irremediable  con- 
trasts between  wealth  and  poverty ;  the  exist- 
ence of  the  thousands  and  millions  to  whom  life 
seems  to  bring  no  one  good  thing,  no  one  good 
opportunity.  How  pathetic  is  the  spectacle  that 
steals  into  the  imagination  when  one  looks  into 
the  faces  of  a  crowd  and  thinks  what  possibilities 
of  happiness  each  has  missed,  what  experiences 
of  privation,  disappointment,  and  suffering  each 
has  endured.  How  rayless  and  barren  life  is 
for  the  great  multitude.  The  immense  and 
awful  gloom  that  broods  over  the  world,  the 


THE  SEALED  BOOK.  6 1 

"  oppression  that  maketh  a  wise  man  mad,"  the 
hopeless  tardiness  of  efforts  to  amend  and  re- 
trieve, the  dull  and  paralyzed  sense  of  justice  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  have  power — these 
things  sometimes  so  crush  us  that  we  seek 
relief  from  the  burden  of  a  life  at  once  so  miser- 
able and  so  powerless. 

Nor  less  terrible  is  the  mystery  of  our  own 
life.  Let  any  one  past  the  first  freshness  of 
youth  consider  what  he  has  had  to  bear,  and 
what  he  knows  lies  waiting  for  him  in  the 
future — what  pangs  of  separation,  what  bitter- 
ness of  disappointment,  what  agony  of  hope 
deferred.  If  all  these  troubles  seemed  to  be 
sent  to  soften  and  sanctify  they  would  not  press 
upon  us  as  they  do  ;  but  many  seem  almost  as 
if  they  were  designed  to  harden  us.  The  dear 
ones  are  taken  from  us  whose  love  softened  our 
hearts  and  opened  them  to  better  influences  ; 
the  hard  earnings  of  a  lifetime  are  lost  when  we 
were  planning  how  to  lay  them  out  in  the  ser- 
vice of  God  ;  the  voices  which  spoke  bravely 
for  Christ  are  silenced,  and  the  hands  are  tied 
that  gladly  did  His  bidding.  The  purposes  and 
plans  of  our  life  which  had  least  of  selfishness 
in  them,  those  efforts  in  which  we  humbly  and 


62  THE  LAMB  OPENING 

sincerely  sought  the  good  of  His  kingdom  come 
to  utter  ruin  and  defeat.  Can  we  not  join  in 
the  tears  of  him  who  wept  much  :  "  I  wept 
much."  "  The  words,  'I  wept  much,' can  only 
be  understood  by  those  who  have  lived  in  great 
catastrophes  of  the  Church,  and  entered  w'th 
the  fullest  sympathy  into  her  sufferings.  Not 
without  tears  was  the  book  of  Revelation  writ- 
ten, and  not  without  tears  can  it  be  under- 
stood." Doubt  has  been  called  the  last  trial  of 
the  sons  of  God,  and  it  is  perhaps  the  most 
terrible.  Yet  this  was  not  a  failure  of  faith,  but 
the  outburst  of  a  heart  loving  God  and  his 
fellow-creatures  and  the  light.  The  light  came 
when  the  Lamb  took  the  book. 


II. 


The  Lamb  opens  this  seven-sealed  Book. 
The  fact  gives  us  not  by  any  means  a  complete 
solution  of  mystery.  Perfect  understanding 
of  all  things  may  be  beyond  our  capacities,  and 
the  power  of  tracing  the  golden  thread  of  love 
which  unites  God's  ways,  is  a  gift  for  the 
hereafter.     What  we  receive  is  light  enough  to 


THE  SEALED  BOOK.  6^ 

enable  us  to  work  and  suffer  and  wait,  patiently 
abiding  God's  time. 

I.  The  Lamb  opens  the  seals,  because  He 
shows  us  God's  heart.  The  question  that  tor- 
tures us  is : — "  Does  God  care  for  our  suffer- 
ing ?  If  there  be  a  God,  is  He  a  being  en- 
throned in  an  eternity  of  passionless  bliss,  who 
looks  untroubled  on  the  struggle  and  wreck  of 
the  world  ?  If  He  does  care,  why  does  He  not 
interpose,  why  does  not  His  mighty  hand  turn 
back  the  tide  of  evil  and  suffering,  and  bring 
in  rest  and  joy ,'' "  Such  questions  have  ever 
perplexed  the  heart,  and  will  perplex  it  until 
the  Revelation  of  the  Lamb  is  understood. 
Nor  will  it  be  sufficient  for  us  to  believe,  as 
devout  hearts  always  have  believed,  that  the 
great  God  on  high  in  his  eternal  years,  must 
pity  the  frail  and  fading  creatures  of  a  day — 
that  His  great  heart  must  be  touched  with  ruth 
at  the  sight  of  our  miserable  struggles,  our  sad 
environment,  and  our  inevitable  defeat.  There 
may  be  comfort  in  such  a  thought,  but  it  is  not 
all  the  comfort  that  we  need  ;  and,  besides,  we 
want  something  that  will  prove  it.  Now,  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Lamb,_ 
not  only  gives  us  a  new  view  of  God's  pity,  but 


64  THE  LAMB  OPENING 

it  gives  us  what  was  wanted  as  much,  and  that 
is  an  undeniable  and  irresistible  proof.  It  gives 
us  a  new  view  of  God's  pity,  for  it  shows  us 
not  a  God  having  compassion  from  the  heights 
of  the  throne,  but  a  God  who  of  his  own  will 
left  these  heights,  and  came  down  into  the  depths 
of  mortal  darkness,  that  He  might  understand 
by  actual  experience,  those  evils  which  He  had 
to  relieve.  It  shows  us  a  God  with  human  eyes, 
filled  with  human  .tears  ;  a^  God  who  has  made 
trial  of  the  strangest,  most  humbling,  most 
afflicting  experiences,  and  who  has  not  shrunk 
from  the  crowning  and  final  proof  of  love — 
giving  up  His  own  life.  The  compassion  is 
turned  into  sympathy,  and  is  far  more  welcome 
and  dear  because  it  comes  from  one  who  stands 
by  our  side,  and  not  from  one  lifted  infinitely 
above  us  in  the  glories  and  the  eternities.  But 
not  only  have  we  this  new  revelation  of  God's 
feeling  towards  human  suffering — we  have  it 
actually  verified  to  us.  In  the  Cross  we  gaze 
into  the  depths  of  God's  heart ;  and  in  that 
tremendous  and  unimaginable  event,'^God  dying  4- 
upon  the  Cross  for  human  sins,  we  see  a  proof, 
that  never  can  be  shaken,  of  God's  love  to- 
wards men. 


THE  SEALED  BOOK.  65 

One  may  see  something  of  the  new  light 
Christianity  has  brought  into  the  world,  by 
looking  at  pictures  which  may  sometimes  be 
seen  hanging  side  by  side — the  glowing  deities 
of  the  classic  religions,  in  the  ecstasy  of  sen- 
sual bliss,  and  the  Son  of  God,  with  stream- 
ing wounds,  and  a  face  of  pain  and  sorrow. 
"  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  He  gave  His 
only  begotten  Son."  The  very  centre  of  our 
religion  is  a  suffering  man.  "  If  God  made  the 
world,"  said  the  pessimist  philosopher  of  Ger- 
many, "  I  should  not  like  to  be  in  the  place  of 
God  ;  its  woes  would  break  my  heart."  He 
knew  not  what  he  said.  The  woes  of  the 
world  did  break  the  heart  of  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh. 

2.  Again,  there  is  rest  and  peace  in  the 
thought,  in  the  measure  in  which  we  make  it 
jours,  that  the  government  and  destinies  of  the 
■world  belong  to  the  Lamb.  He  who  died  for 
the  world,  has  in  His  hands  the  empire  of  the 
world,  and  with  that  empire  He  has  all  power 
given  unto  Him.  Can  we  not  trust  Him  .■* 
Surely  He  has  done  much  which  ought  to  make 
trust  easy.  He  has  shown  His  love  for  the 
world  by  dying  for  the  world,  and  the  care  of 
E 


66  THE  LAMB  OPENING 

a  world  which  He  loved  so  well,  and  for  which 
He  did  so  much,  may  surely  be  left  quietly  in 
His  own  keeping.  He  alone  knows  the  ways 
He  must  travel  to  reach  His  great  end.  Verily, 
His  way  is  in  the  sea,  and  His  path  in  the 
great  waters,  and  His  footsteps  are  not  known  ; 
nevertheless,  He  leads  His  people  like  a  flock. 
Why  should  we  not  trust  Him  ?  Why  should 
we  grieve  Him  with  our  doubt .-'  Shall  we 
doubt  the  love  that  died,  and  shall  we  seek  to 
wrest  the  destinies  of  the  world  from  the  wisdom 
and  power,  and  love  of  the  Lamb  ?  Most  rest- 
ful and  blessed  is  the  thought,  that  He  to  whom 
all  power  is  committed,  is  He  who  has  shown 
that  He  knows  best  how  to  use  it. 

3.  Again,  the  Cross  shows  us  how,  what  seems 
at  the  time  to  be  irretrievable  and  unalleviated 
disaster  may  be  the  chiefest  blessing.  When 
Jesus  Christ  died,  the  very  strongest  faith  was 
overwhelmed.  All  forsook  him  and  fled,  and 
even  those  who  seemed  to  have  entered  furthest 
into  the  meaning  of  his  mission  were  hardly 
braver  than  their  neighbours.  He  died  lonely, 
forsaken  by  men,  even  by  those  who  might 
have  been  expected  to  cling  to  him  longest  and 
last.     Nor  is  this  very  wonderful,  for  to  human 


THE  SEALED  BOOK.  67 

eyes  it  seemed  that  the  Cross  of  Jesus  meant 
the. defeat  and  the  extinction  of  all  his  hopes. 
It  is  hard  for  us  looking  back,  with  the  history 
of  Christianity  in  our  minds,  to  understand  the 
depth  of  the  darkness  which  wrapt  God's  ways, 
even  to  the  most  faithful,  when  Jesus  was 
crucified.  We  know  now  that  the  Cross  is  the 
spring  of  all  Christian  life.  We  know  that  the 
death  of  Christ  has  poured  the  life-blood  of  a 
new  hope  into  the  heart  of  the  world  ;  we  know 
that  the  Cross  turns  not  back  but  goes  on  ever 
to  win  new  victories.  Let  us  take  the  light  of 
that  Cross  and  throw  it  upon  all  other  smaller 
crosses.  Does  it  not  throw  its  light  upon  the 
shadows  of  nature  and  show  us  the  meaning  of 
the  great  law  of  sacrifice  that  rules  there  ?  We 
see  in  nature  not  a  mere  blind  and  purposeless 
waste  of  life,  but  a  striving  towards  a  fair  end  of 
things.  Nature  is  ever  seeking  to  repair  waste 
places,  and  to  cover  desolation  with  loveliness, 
and  the  final  result  of  all  the  struggle  will  be 
beauty,  and  a  true  and  gracious  issue  will  be 
reached  when  the  pain  is  past,  and  a  universe 
will  exist  in  which  nothing  will  be  deformed  or 
fading.  The  teaching  of  St  Paul  on  the  vanity 
of  creation  is  one  of  the  many  thoughts  of  scrip- 


68  THE  LAMB  OPENING 

ture  that  has  not  yet  been  thoroughly  incor- 
porated into  the  Christian  consciousness.  He 
recognised  as  clearly  as  the  latest  men  of 
science  the  existence  of  a  law  of  struggle,  and 
the  misery  thence  arising.  But  to  him  these 
pains  were  the  birth  throes  of  a  new  creation. 
He  refused  to  believe  with  scientific  teachers 
that  the  groaning  and  travailing  of  creation  will 
end  in  stagnation  and  despair.  Life  is  not  to 
cease  when  anguish  ceases,  creation  will  be 
delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into 
the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 
"  God  will  restore  to  a  perfect  state  the  world 
now  fallen  together  with  mankind."* 

And  the  same  is  true  of  history.  Looking 
back  on  the  darkest  and  most  disastrous  times, 
on  volcanic  eruptions  which  seemed  for  the 
time  to  devastate  the  earth,  we  see  that  they 
were  needed  for  the  clearing  of  the  air.  for  the 
overthrow  of  tyranny,  for  the  entering  in  of  a 
better  time. 

In  the  lesser  trials  of  our  own  life  we  see  the 

working  of  the  same  principle.     We  can   look 

back  on  the  old  dead  griefs  and  see  how  they 

were  all  intended  to  bless  us,  and  how  Christ 

*  See  Calvin  on  Rom.  viii.  20-22.  -- 


THE  SEALED  BOOK,  69 

was  with  us  in  them.  Let  us  learn  to  see  him 
by  our  side  in  the  present  furnace,  to  speak 
with  Paul,  of  sufferings  in  which  we  noiu  rejoice. 
In  the  very  moment  of  the  intensest  pressure 
of  the  pain,  when  the  iron  is  entering  into  our 
souls,  let  us  be  aware  of  the  love  that  chastens 
us  for  our  profit,  that  we  may  be  partakers  of 
his  holiness. 

He  himself  sustained  his  faith  so.  .  Remember 
how  when  the  Greeks  came  to  him  a  transient 
pang  seized  him  at  the  thought  that  so  great 
and  fruitful  a  work  was  to  be  so  soon  arrested 
by  death.  But  he  recalled  that  his  shameful 
uplifting  on  the  tree  was  to  be  the  true  glorious 
elevation  to  which  the  world  was  to  turn.  He 
remembered  that  death  was  to  be  infinitely 
more  fruitful  than  life.  He  projects  the  shadow 
of  the  piece  of  wood  on  which  he  was  to  be 
lifted  a  few  feet  from  the  ground  into  the  heaven 
of  heavens,  and  says,  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will 
draw  all  men  unto  me."  These  who  had  come 
to  him  were  but  the  first  ripple  of  the  full  tide 
of  humanity  that  was  to  roll  shoreward  to  his 
feet.  His  Cross  was  his  throne,  and  its  light  is 
flung  back  on  all  the  lesser  crosses  of  Nature 
and  of  Man. 


V. 

THE   WARRIOR    LAMB. 


Workmen  of  God  !  oh  lose  not  heart, 

But  learn  what  God  is  like, 
And  in  the  darkest  battle-field 

Thou  shalt  know  where  to  strike. 

Thrice  blest  is  he  to  whom  is  given 

The  instinct  that  can  tell 
That  God  is  on  the  field  when  He 

Is  most  invisible. 

Then  learn  to  scorn  the  praise  of  men, 

And  learn  to  lose  with  God, 
For  Jesus  won  the  world  through  shame, 

And  beckons  thee  His  road. 


V. 

THE  WARRIOR  LAMB. 

It  has  been  said  truly  that  the  reach  and  scope 
of  Christ's  gospel  are  so  large,  that  we  cannot 
follow  all  its  lines.  There  is  an  under-lying 
unity  which  we  cannot  thoroughly  master — the 
action  of  a  great  principle,  which  we  are  not 
able  to  express  except  by  a  paradox.  Thus 
Christianity  binds  together  statements  ap- 
parently intensely  opposed,  and  we  are  prone, 
for  refuge,  to  fall  into  the  easy  and  misleading 
habit  of  accepting  one  side  of  the  truth  and 
ignoring  the  other.  In  Jesus  Christ  paradox 
reaches  its  climax.  All  contradictions  meet 
in  Him,  and  are  reconciled  so  quietly,  so 
without  strain  or  effort,  as  to  assure  us  that 
in  Him  we  have  found  the  full  truth.  He  is 
the  Lamb,  the  very  ideal  of  innocence  and 
gentleness,  and  yet  He  is  the  Judge,  the  enemy, 
the  warrior.  And  here  we  have  Him  figured 
as  the  great  antagonist  of  the  beast,  whom  He 


74  THE  WARRIOR  LAMB. 

is  ultimately  to  subdue.  The  spiritual  lesson  is 
the  same,  whatever  view  we  take  of  the  person 
before  the  apostle's  mind,  and  whether  or  not 
we  believe  in  a  future  historical  realisation  of 
the  vision.  It  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to 
say,  that  the  beast  represents  that  element  in 
man  against  which  Jesus  Christ  fights.  We 
shall  look  at  two  things — First,  the  foe  ;  and 
secondly,  the  manner  in  which  the  Lamb  fights 
against  him  and  overcomes. 


First,  then,  we  have  the  beast  —  the  foe  in 
man.  As  we  have  seen,  when  John  wrote  this 
book,  the  power  of  the  beast  seemed  dominant 
in  the  world.  Forms  of  evil,  strange,  terrible, 
and  overpowering,  prevailed  and  made  them- 
selves manifest  in  glaring  and  appalling  clear- 
ness. Now,  while  the  power  of  the  beast  ele- 
ment in  man  is  not  now  so  palpable,  while 
there  are  signs,  as  we  shall  see,  that  it  is  in  a 
measure  weakened,  not  even  the  blindest  can 
deny  the  extent  and  the  depth  of  his  sway.  It 
is  true  that  great  efforts  have  been  made  to  dis- 
guise the  hideous  face  of  evil.  It  is  true,  speak- 
ing generally,  that  in  our  popular  literature  the 


THE  WARRIOR  LAMB.  75 

worst  forms  of  animalism  are  suppressed,  and 
the  delicacy  and  reticence  of  society  in  speak- 
ing on  certain  themes,  or  rather  their  complete 
banishment,  are  to  some  extent  proofs  of  pro- 
gress. It  is  true  that  the  slaves  of  evil  and  the 
tempters  to  evil  do  not  ply  their  trade  so  unre- 
strainedly as  once  they  did,  and  it  is  true  that 
the  hearts  and  consciences  of  Christian  people 
have  been  awakened,  as  perhaps  never  before, 
to  their  responsibilities  in  connection  with  the 
disfigurements  and  perils  of  national  life.  But, 
after  all,  is  there  much  to  congratulate  ourselves 
upon.'  In  our  great  cities  the  forces  of  the  law 
seem  to  be  paralysed  in  the  face  of  certain  ini- 
quities which  lift  themselves  unabashed,  and 
press  themselves  in  their  most  hideous  forms 
upon  the  notice  even  of  the  most  innocent. 
The  best  and  the  most  earnest  lovers  of  their 
kind,  have  been  driven  into  the  deepest  per- 
plexities as  to  how  legislation  is  to  cope  with 
evils  that  seem  almost  too  great  for  its  force. 
Many  of  the  purest  and  noblest  spirits  of  our 
time  have  been  forced  to  the  conclusion,  that  it 
is  hopeless  to  expect  the  destruction  of  certain 
evils  ;  that  nothing  more  is  possible  than  to 
resfulate  and  control   them.      Nor  is  there  so 


76  THE  WARRIOR  LAMB. 

much  to  congratulate  ourselves  upon  in  our 
literature.  The  taint  may  not  be  so  gross,  but 
itjs  there,  though  in  a  subtler  form,  and  not 
less  seductive  because  it  is  somewhat  disguised ; 
and  though  much  is  suppressed,  we  have  now 
and  then  terrible  indications  of  what  lies  be- 
hind and  beneath  that  silence,  and  finds  expres- 
sion in  its  own  place  and  time.  The  develop- 
ment of  intellect  and  culture  has  done  nothing 
to  destroy  the  power  of  beasthood.  Nay,  the 
intellect  has  often  been  used  to  devise  new 
refinements  of  sin,  and  from  under  the  decor- 
ous exterior,  ever  and  anon  leap  out  startling 
manifestations  of  the  animal.  Even  in  the  best 
this  power  is  often  agonisingly  felt.  Some  of 
the  holiest  lives  the  world  has  ever  known  have 
been  darkened  and  shortened  through  struggles 
with  the  animal  nature — the  changed  soul  in  the 
unchanged  body,  fretting  in  its  prison.  And  this 
is  the  explanation  of  the  astounding  falls  from 
high  position  and  profession  that  often  terrify 
us,  and  which  lead  all  wise  men  to  pray  with 
St  Augustine — "The  Lord  deliver  me  from 
that  wicked  man  myself."  It  is  not  our  busi- 
ness to  inquire  how  far  the  intellect  itself  is  dis- 
torted and  perverted  through  the  passions.     A 


THE  WARRIOR  LAMB  "]"] 

striking  phrase  in  one  of  tlie  prophets  says,  that 
the  sins  of  the  people  are  written  upon  the 
horns  of  the  altar,  and  much  of  our  popular 
religion,  with  its  poor  and  shallow  conceptions 
of  sin  and  righteousness,  may  take  its  rise  from 
man's  sin.  At  any  rate,  the  fact  remains  that 
the  power  of  the  beast,  is  as  it  has  been,  the 
mightiest  in  the  world. 

II. 

Against  this  enemy  the  Lamb  of  God  wars. 
We  shall  consider  his  war  mainly  as  the  Lamb 
of  God,  but  there  is  another  side  which  must 
not  be  overlooked'. 

I.  The  punitive  and  terrible  side  of  Christ's 
nature  is  manifested  in  his  war  against  sin. 
That  there  is  such  an  aspect  of  the  gentle 
Christ  is  clearly  taught  in  the  Old  Testament, 
where  men  are  warned  to  kiss  the  Son  lest  He 
be  angry,  and  they  perish  in  the  way  when  his 
wrath  is  kindled  but  a  little.  The  revelation  of 
the  New  Testament  does  not  supersede  although 
it  supplements  the  Old.  It  is  in  this  book  of 
Revelation  that  we  read  of  Jesus  Christ  having 
eyes  like  a  flame  of  fire,  and  feet  like  fine  brass 
• — eyes  of  flame  to  show  His  knowledge  of  man's 


78  THE  WARRIOR  LAMB. 

sin,  and  the  indignation  it  kindles  in  him,  and 
feet  like  fine  brass  to  show  the  active  energy 
which  follows  upon  His  clear  perception  of  evil 
and  His  indignation  against  it.  We  must  take 
the  whole  Christ  as  He  is  presented  to  us  ;  and 
indeed  the  beauty  and  preciousness  of  the 
gentle  aspect  is  greatly  limited,  and  lowered 
when  we  ignore  the  other  side  in  which  he  ap- 
pears as  the  Judge  and  Avenger  of  evil. 

This  punitive  and  destroying  energy  of 
Christ  is  a  fact  of  history  as  well  as  a  fact  of 
Scripture.  All  along  history  we  have  examples 
of  institutions  contrary  to  the  will  of  Christ  which 
have  suddenly  perished,  not  merely  from  an  in- 
ternal process  of  decay,  nor  because  of  the  power 
of  their  enemies  amongst  men,  but  simply  by 
the  destructive  energy  of  a  Christ  who,  grown 
weary  of  them,  lifted  his  heavy  foot  to  crush 
them.  When  friends  predicted  a  long  lease  of 
life,  when  foes  were  faint  at  heart  because  the 
strength  opposed  to  them  seemed  so  great,  in  a 
moment,  to  the  amazement  of  all,  such  in- 
stitutions have  suddenly  vanished  to  the  utter 
confusion  of  too  confident  prophets. 

We  do  not  need  to  go  further  back  than  to 
the  crash  of  slavery  in  America.     How  little 


THE  WARRIOR  LAMB.  79 

likely  that  seemed  from  any  human  point  of 
view,  and  yet  how  sudden,  complete,  and  mira- 
culous the  overthrowal  was,  hardly  explicable, 
save  as  a  manifestation  of  the  destroying  energy 
of  Christ. 

Why  and  when  does  Christ  use  this  destruc- 
tive power  ?  He  uses  it  because  these  things 
cannot  be  sanctified,  and  He  uses  it  when  the 
last  hope  of  reformation  from  within  has  utterly 
vanished.  Then  force  becomes  a^emedy,  and 
force  is  applied.  Hoary  tyrannies,  blood- 
cemented,  are  thrown  to  the  ground.  Churches, 
institutions,  nations,  individuals  are  visited  with 
complete  destruction,  trampled  beneath  His  feet 
in  ruin.  But  this  never  happens  until  every 
hope  of  reformation  is  exhausted.  Christ  is 
able  to  turn  with  clean  hands  to  a  watching 
world,  and  say  of  every  institution  thus  visited, 
"  I  gave  her  space  to  repent."  His  patience 
exceeds  our  own,  and  often  when  we  say,  /'  Cut 
it  down,  why  cumbereth  it  the  ground .-' "  He 
answers,  "Let  it  alone  this  year  also."  Only, 
His  coming  in  judgment,  if  it  be  slow,  is  sure, 
and  institutions  which  will  not  listen  to  the 
voice  of  pleading  and  warning  may  hear  the 
sound  of  the  approaching  footfalls  of  the  Son 


8o  THE  WARRIOR  LAMB. 

of  God  coming  to  destroy  them.  The  destruc- 
tion He  inflicts  is  complete.  When  some  great 
evil  vanishes  from  the  world  we  know  assuredly 
that,  come  what  may,  that  horrid  head  at 
least  shall  never  be  reared  again.  With  that 
wrong  we  are  done  for  ever.  When  Christ 
does  His  work  He  does  it  effectually. 

2.  Although,  as  we  have  said,  force  in  one 
sense  is  a  remedy  as  against  irreclaimable  foes 
like  these,  yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  force  is 
no  remedy,  for  the  true  victory  is  the  victory 
over  the  will.  That  is  the  victory  which  Christ 
values — not  the  victory  of  destruction,  but  the 
bringing  of  the  rebellious  will  into  loving  alle- 
giance to  Him.  And  so  He  fights  against  the 
beast  by  His  cross.  His  apostle,  Paul,  took  for 
the  motto  of  his  strange  and  bold  invasion  of  the 
world,  "  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in 
the  cross."  The  antagonist  to  the  sin  of  man  is 
the  grace  of  God  in  Christ. 

(i.)  The  cross  tells  us,  first  of  all,  that  the 
antagonist  of  sin  is  not  man,  but  God.  Man's 
antagonism  to  sin  has  always  been  short-lived 
and  futile.  All  experience  teaches  that  man  is 
not  able  to  prevail  against  sin.  Our  own  ex- 
perience is  full  of  testimonies  to  the  same  truth 


THE  WARRIOR  LAMB.  8  I 

to  the  vanity  of  our  resolutions  and  struggles, 
to  our  certain  and  absolute  defeat.  Now,  to 
men  who,  having  lost  hope,  have  almost  given 
over  the  conflict,  the  cross  is  the  message  that 
God  has  taken  the  field,  that  He  has  ceased 
any  more  to  be  invisible,  far  off,  or  question- 
able ;  that  He  has  come  to  us  in  the  person  of 
His  Son  to  help  us  in  our  else  vain  struggle 
against  faults,  and  sins,  and  crimes.  How 
wonderful  the  change  from  questioning  whether 
there  was  a  God  at  all,  from  conceiving  Him,  if 
we  believed  Him  to  exist,  as  an  Avenger  and  a 
wrathful  Judge !  We  pass  into  a  certain  and 
clear  knowledge  of  God — a  knowledge  which 
shows  Him  as  the  friend  fighting  for  us  in  the 
battle  against  sin. 

2.  The  cross  tells  us  that  the  attribute  by 
which  God  fights  against  sin  is  His  love.  The 
very  fact  that  Jesus  Christ  appeared  in  the  flesh 
showed  that  God  had  made  common  cause  with 
us ;  and  the  fact  that  Jesus  died  upon  the  cross 
is  the  declaration  that  upon  God's  part  all  hin- 
drance is  removed,  and  that  His  will,  yea,  His 
yearning  desire,  is  that  men  should  be  recon- 
ciled to  Him.  It  is  by  the  sunshine  of  His 
love  that  He  melts  our  hard  hearts.  Force  is 
F 


82  THE  WARRIOR  LAMB. 

no  remedy.  Force  may  break  in  pieces  the  ice, 
and  yet  every  fragment  remains  hard  ;  "  sun- 
shine makes  it  flow  down  in  sweet  water  that 
mirrors  the  h"ght  that  loosed  its  bonds  of  cold." 
The  thunder  of  threatening  may  appal  us,  the 
power  of  God  may  humble  us  and  crush  us,  but 
it  is  the  love  of  God  that  brings  back  the  lost, 
and  wins  the  wayward  heart,  and  quenches  the 
fire  of  lust,  and  makes  us  His  true  children. 

3.  The  cross  tells  us  that  the  crowning 
attribute  of  God  is  love.  Love,  as  it  were,  is 
throned  and  sceptred,  and  uses  all  the  other 
attributes  of  God  as  her  tools  and  instruments. 
They  all  are  but  the  "ministers  of  love,  and 
feed  her  sacred  flame."  God  is  love.  This  is 
the  message,  above  all  others,  that  has  gone  to 
the  heart  of  the  world. 

4.  Jesus  Christ  fights  with  His  cross,  and 
behind  the  cross  are  the  energies  of  the  Spirit. 
The  cross  is  preached  by  faithful  men  who  have 
Christ's  spirit  in  them,  and  work  in  a  strength 
which  is  not  their  own,  Jesus  Christ  is  repre- 
sented in  this  book  as  the  Lord  of  the  seven 
spirits  and  the  seven  stars.  He  differs  from  all 
other  teachers  in  being  able  to  pour  out  His 
Spirit ;  and  the  way  in  which  this  Spirit  works 
in  the  world  is  generally  through  men  called, 


THE  WARRIOR  LAMB.  S^ 

and  chosen,  and  faithful,  who  are  filled  with  that 
Spirit,  and  gain  victories  through  its  power.  He 
has,  as  it  were,  in  one  hand  the  full  flagon — the 
seven  spirits ;  in  the  other  the  empty  vessel — 
the  seven  stars.  He  pours  life  from  one  into 
the  other.  And  when  a  Church  is  dying  He 
sends  stars — men  like  Wesley  and  Whitfield  — 
to  blow  the  embers  into  flame ;  and  every  one 
fighting  in  this  war  of  the  Lamb  has  behind 
him,  if  he  seeks  them,  the  energies  of  this  Divine 
and  all-victorious  Spirit. 

So  then  our  confidence  in  the  spread  of  reli- 
gion depends  on  this — "  I  believe  in  the  Holy 
Ghost."  All  opposition  outside  the  Church,  and 
all  scepticism  within  it,  are  met  by  this  answer. 
If  we  are  sure  that  it  is  the  war  of  the  Lamb 
that  we  are  fighting,  then  no  matter  what  oppo- 
sition of  circumstances  there  may  be ;  no  matter 
what  combinations  may  be  formed  against  us  ; 
no  matter  what  earthly  obstacles  and  difficulties 
may  rise  ;  we  are  to  do  our  work  with  cheerful 
confidence,  springing  from  our  trust  in  the  Divine 
Spirit,  who  will  not  fail  us,  and  who  is  stronger 
than  them  all. 

III. 

Such  is  the  war  the  Son  of  God  is  fighting, 
and  after  eighteen  hundred  years  of  this  war  of 


84  THE  WARRIOR  LAMB. 

the  cross,  what  are  we  to  say  of  the  results  ?  Is 
the  cross  marching  on  to  victory  ?  Now,  what- 
ever history  lay  behind  us,  we  should  have  to 
say  of  what  lies  before  us  that  "  our  hopes  are 
bright  as  the  promises  of  God."  But  is  it  pos- 
sible for  any  one  to  look  on  the  history  of  these 
years  and  not  see  the  onward  march  of  the 
cross  of  Christ  .-*  Christ  our  Lord  was  a  new 
birth.  Christianity  was  a  new  energy  breathed 
across  the  world.  It  is  not  without  reason  that 
all  the  years  since  He  came  have  been  called 
years  of  the  Lord.  The  innumerable  lives  of 
virtue,  the  deathbeds  of  triumphant  peace,  the 
hundreds  and  thousands  in  every  land  who 
have  not  counted  their  lives  dear  to  them  for 
His  sake,  the  innumerable  host  of  believers 
taken  home,  the  great  company  still  militant, 
the  energy  and  the  hope  with  which  Christianity 
has  ever  gone  forward  to  annex  new  fields — 
these  are  enough  to  rebuke  our  despondency, 
and  to  assure  us  that  the  Lamb  is  to  conquer  in 
His  war. 

And  what  changes  the  cross  has  wrought  upon 
society !  Much  that  is  evil  still  lingers,  but, 
compared  with  the  time  of  John — as  one  of  our 
chief  thinkers  says — life  seems  now  like  a  trained 


THE  WARRIOR  LAMB.  8$ 

and  serious  manhood  beside  a  wild  and  passion- 
ate childhood.  And  if  there  is  much  that  still 
discourages  and  depresses  us,  let  us  remember 
that  evil  is  to  grow  as  well  as  good.  Both  grew 
together  until  the  harvest.  We  wrestle  with 
invisible  powers,  not  affected  by  the  progress  of 
civilization,  nor  moved,  save  to  enmity,  by  Chris- 
tian influences.  These  forces  exist,  they  have 
existed,  and  they  will  grow.  Let  us  not  be  sur- 
prised at  new  and  malignant  outbreaks  of  the 
powers  of  evil — outbreaks  which  men  of  the 
world  would  indignantly  deny  to  be  possible. 
Many  students  of  Scripture  believe  that  as 
evil  and  good  both  grow,  so  at  last  they  will 
come  in  conflict  at  the  end  of  the  world  in  a 
great  struggle,  in  which  the  evil  will  be 
utterly  put  down,  the  close  of  the  dispensation 
thus  being  in  an  evening  red  with  blood.* 
Whether  it  be  so  or  not,  let  us  not  be  alarmed 
at  evil,  not  terrified  by  its  growth.  Let  us  be- 
have as  those  who  have  been  warned  of  this, 
who  are  prepared  for  it,  and  who  are  assured 
through  all  of  the  final  triumph  of  the  good. 

2.  How  are  we  who  are  engaged  in  the  war  of 
the  Lamb  to  look  upon  our  weapon .-'  Turn 
*  Compare  Martensen's  Christian  Ethics,  vol.  ii.,  p.  356. 


86  THE  WARRIOR  LAMB. 

back  and  we  see  how  in  the  worst  and  most 
fatal  storms,  the  hopes  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  its  springs  of  recovery  have  never  been 
destroyed.  Turn  back  and  see  how  its  language 
is  for  the  many,  not  merely  for  the  few.  See 
how  it  meets  the  needs  of  the  highest  as  well  as 
the  lowest — of  Shakespeare,  and  Bacon,  and 
Newton,  as  well  of  the  poor  who  can  hardly 
spell  the  words  they  trust  in.  Even  as  all  men 
are  equal  before  the  facts  of  life,  so  all  men  need 
equally  the  grace  of  God  in  Christ.  See  how 
Christianity  still  exists  after  everything  that 
undermines  and  ruins  ideas  and  institutions  has 
done  its  worst.  See  how  even  in  our  own  day  it 
still  sends  the  thrill  through  men  that  it  sent 
through  them  at  first.  See  how  in  an  age  of 
culture  the  coarsest  and  crudest  form  of  Chris- 
tian teaching  moves  and  sways  the  hearts  of 
men,  stirring  them  to  the  very  depths.  And 
shall  we  give  up  a  faith  like  this,  with  all  the 
overcoming  and  regenerating  forces  that  are 
stored  in  it,  with  all  its  powers  for  righteous- 
ness, and  all  its  hopes  for  men  before  the 
ominous  aspects  and  prophecies  of  the  hour, 
because  of  the  ways  of  thinking  of  some  of  the 
leaders  of  the  present  generation  .''    God  forbid. 


THE  WARRIOR  LAMB.  87 

"  O  Lord,  in  Thee  have  I  trust,  let  me  never 
be  confounded."  "This  is  the  victory  that 
overcometh  the  world,  even  our  faith."  The 
bearer  of  this  standard  alone  we  count  upon  in 
the  spiritual  conflict  wherein  all  Europe  is 
engaging  or  engaged.  "All  the  old  signs  and 
quarterings  will  soon  be  in  the  dust.  The 
proudest  banners  of  the  earth  are  already  trip- 
ping up  their  clansmen,  or  are  bound  in  shreds 
around  wounds  they  cannot  staunch.  If  God 
would  send  us  some  young  brave  spirits  to  spur 
bareheaded  in  the  stifling  tumult,  with  a  cross 
displayed  on  a  fair  white  field,  we  might  again 
subdue  the  world."  * 

*  Sydney  Dobell,  Life,  i.,  p.  184. 


VI. 

THE   MARRIAGE   OF   THE   LAMB. 


Jerusalem  makes  melody 

For  simple  joy  of  heart, 
An  organ  of  full  compass  she, 

One  tuned  through  every  part. 
While  not  to  day  or  night  belong 
Her  matins  and  her  even  song. 
The  one  thanksgiving  of  her  throng. 

Jerusalem,  vi'here  song  nor  gem. 

Nor  fruit  nor  waters  cease, 
God  bring  us  to  Jerusalem, 

God  bring  us  home  in  peace. 
The  strong  who  stand,  the  weak  who  fall. 
The  first  and  last,  the  great  and  small, 
Home  one  by  one,  home  one  and  all. 


VI. 

THE   MARRIAGE   OF    THE   LAMB. 


The  various  descriptions  of  the  state  of  final 
blessedness  in  connection  with  the  Lamb  rest 
upon  two  great  principles,  with  which  we  start. 
I.  The  state  of  heaven  is  a  state  of  grace. 
The  entrance  is  through  the  grace  of  redemption : 
the  blessed  have  washed  their  robes  and  made 
them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.  It  was 
by  grace  that  we  were  called  from  the  state  of 
trespasses  and  sins  into  the  life  of  Christ.  It  is 
by  grace  that  we  are  comforted  in  our  sorrows 
and  upborne  in  our  conflicts.  It  is  grace  that 
helps  us  to  die  peacefully,  and  it  is  grace  to  which 
all  is  due,  when  our  palm-bearing  hands  are  at 
rest  and  the  fight  lies  behind  us,  and  we  sit 
down  with  the  Saviour,  who  has  overcome,  in 
the  new  kingdom.  There  is  never  a  moment 
in  which  any  enjoyment   of  eternity  is  to  be 


92      THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 

ascribed  to  our  own  desert,  and  this  is  one  great 
reason  why  the  state  of  heaven  is  represented  as 
a  state  of  praise.  The  praise  is  the  utterance 
of  the  gratitude  of  full  hearts,  which  praise  be- 
cause only  praise  can  speak  their  feelings,  and 
do  not  cease  praising  because  they  never 
cease  receiving,  and  because  all  that  they  can 
express  of  thankfulness  leaves  a  great  deep  un- 
uttered.  Why  do  they  sing  ?  It  is  because 
speech  is  too  weak  to  tell  what  they  feel. 
Words  are  the  feeblest  language  of  the  soul. 
How  poor  an  instrument  is  speech  for  the 
great  multitude  who  never  acquire  any  real 
mastery  over  it,  and  who  feel  it  rather  a  bar 
against  which  the  tide  of  feeling  breaks,  than  a 
channel  for  the  full  river  of  emotion  to  flow  in. 
Each  of  us  has  felt  in  trying  to  put  into  words 
our  grief,  our  gratitude,  and  love,  that  we  have 
not  been  able  to  tell  the  half.  If  this  is  felt  on 
earth,  how  much  more  is  it  felt  in  the  deeper 
hearts  of  heaven,  and  is  it  wonderful  that  they 
try  to  utter  themselves  in  praise  ?  "  Worthy  is 
the  Lamb  that  was  slain,"  they  sing,  because 
He  has  redeemed  them  to  God  by  His  blood. 

2.  The  other  principle  is  that  the  experience 
of  the  Church  on  earth  and  that  of  the  Church 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB.     93 

in  heaven  are  essentially  the  same.  Glory  is 
only  the  superlative  degree  of  grace.  Grace  is 
glory  in  the  bud  ;  glory  is  grace  in  the  flower. 
A  golden  thread  of  unity  ties  together  all  the 
experiences  and  possessions  of  the  Christian, 
from  the  time  that  he  first  opens  his  eyes  on  the 
light,  on  through  the  endless  pulses  of  an  un- 
broken eternity.  And  the  way  to  feel  heaven 
real,  and  to  desire  it  as  we  should,  is  to  have 
Christ  dwelling  richly  in  us  now.  Paul,  in 
arguing  for  the  reality  of  a  life  to  come,  built 
upon  the  great  fact  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ.  In  one  sense  that  is  the  final  proof  of 
immortality.  The  great  mountain  wall  which 
bounds  human  experience  and  human  life  is 
cloven  in  one  place.  Through  the  narrow  pass 
come  gleams  of  light,  and  a  way  is  disclosed  by 
which  the  fair  form  of  hope  may  lead  us  on  and 
on  through  the  darkness.  But  the  final  proof 
to  the  Christian  is  "  Christ  in  you  the  hope  of 
glory."  When  we  are  tempted  to  think  that 
"  this  little  life-boat  of  a  world  with  its  noisy 
crew  of  mankind  will  vanish  like  a  cloud  speck 
from  the  azure  of  the  all,"  we  remember  Christ 
in  you.  Like  a  light  in  the  cabin  of  a  ship  toss- 
ing on  the  stormy  sea  it  marks  a  path  across  the 


94     THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 

waters,  refuses  to  be  extinguished  by  all  the 
tempests  of  life,  and  will,  we  know,  outlive  the 
last  winds  of  death. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  belief  in  immortality, 
even  the  desire  for  immortality,  have  become 
weak  in  our  day  ;  and  it  has  been  suggested 
that  the  faith  and  the  desire  will  revive  if  the 
future  life  ceases  to  be  considered  as  a  state  of 
blissful  idleness,  and  comes  to  be  viewed  as  a 
prolongation  of  all  noble  energies  and  all 
generous  activities.  It  may  be  so,  but  it  is 
more  certain  that  the  result  will  be  reached 
if  here  on  earth  Christians  have  a  deeper  ex- 
perience of  the  preciousness  and  the  power  of 
Christ.  If  a  higher  type  of  Christian  life  be- 
comes common  it  will  be  felt  impossible  not  to 
believe  that  grace  must  of  necessity  be  crowned 
and  consummated  in  glory. 

II. 

The  description  of  heaven  we  have  chosen 
under  which  to  group  the  rest  is  that  in  which 
the  Church  triumphant  is  described  as  the 
Lamb's  wife.  This  very  tender  and  deep  con- 
ception occurs  elsewhere  in  the  Bible,  and  in- 
volves various  ideas. 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB.     95 

1.  The  Bride  is  presented  in  perfect  purity. 
In  Oriental  manners  it  was  indispensable  that 
there  should  be  one  to  give  away  the  bride  to 
her  bridegroom,  and  the  Apostle  Paul,  speaking 
of  that  last  great  time  when  humanity  shall  be 
wedded  to  her  true  husband,  says  that  the 
Church  shall  be  presented  to  Christ  without 
spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing.  Pure  in 
virginal  beauty  shall  she  stand  before  the  per- 
fect judgment  of  God,  shaking  from  her  all 
fault  and  stain,  as  water  is  shaken  from  the  white 
wing  of  the  swan  as  it  rises,  the  end  of  her 
Creator  and  the  desire  of  her  husband  being 
satisfied  at  last.  Not  only  will  there  be  perfect 
purity — the  absence  of  every  speck  of  dust — 
but  the  purity  will  be  lustrous.  Clothed  in  fine 
linen,  clean  and  white,  means  a  very  sunburst 
of  purity,  dazzling  and  brilliant,  drawing  all 
eyes.  Then  shall  the  righteous  blaze  out  like 
the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Father.  The 
armies  of  heaven  follow  Christ  not  in  armoured 
steel,  but  in  the  fine  linen  which  is  the  righte- 
ousness of  the  saints. 

2.  The  state  of  heaven  is  a  state  of  love. 
Only  one  thing  is  the  same  in  the  Christian 
as  in  God,  and  that  is  love.     All  other  emotions 


96     THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 

and  parts  of  the  religious  life  in  us  correspond 
to  something  in  God,  but  they  are  not  the  same. 
Our  obedience  to  His  commandments,  our  faith 
in  His  promises,  and  such  like,  are,  as  it  were, 
concave,  to  receive  the  Divine  convexity  to 
which  they  correspond.     But  love  is  the  same. 

He  that  dwelleth  in  love,  says  the  apostle, 
dwelleth  in  God.  He  that  dwelletJi,  not  going 
into  the  sacred  habitation  for  a  moment,  and 
then  bustling  out  into  the  market-place,  but  day 
by  day,  night  by  night,  inhabiting  the  secret 
place  of  the  Most  High.  How  different  this 
calm,  perpetual  thought  of  God  from  the  exist- 
ence we  most  of  us  lead — fleeing  to  God  in  our 
trouble,  and  leaving  the  refuge  in  still  weather. 
Here  love  is  weak  and  secret,  there  strong  and 
confessed.  Here  it  is  a  little  spark,  there  a 
great  clear  flame.  Here  doubtful  and  misty, 
there  made  perfect,  so  that  we  have  boldness  in 
the  day  of  judgment  before  the  light  of  the 
earth  that  streams  from  the  great  white  throne. 
As  in  the  old  story,  the  prince  who  wooed  and 
won  his  bride  in  the  disguise  of  a  beggar, 
brought  her,to  the  capital  city  and  the  king's 
palace,  took  leave  of  her  on  some  pretext,  and 
caused  her  to  be  led  all  shrinking  and  solitary 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB.     97 

into  the  chamber.  When  she  looked  she  saw 
on  the  throne  her  lover,  her  husband,  and  all 
fear  fled.  So  the  Bride,  the  Lamb's  wife,  wooed 
and  won  by  Him,  being  found  in  fashion  as  a 
servant,  lifts  up  her  eyes  and  sees  on  the  throne 
the  old  face  she  has  learned  to  love,  and  is  very 
glad  and  confident.  Her  love  is  made  perfect, 
she  has  boldness  in  the  day  of  judgment,  and 
goes  to  dwell  with  love  for  evermore. 

3.  The  next  idea  involved  is  that  of  perfect 
confidence.  That  is  essential  to  any  happy 
marriage — full  mutual  trust.  In  the  blessed 
state  all  mystery  shall  have  ceased,  all  pain, 
and  all  doubt.  That  does  not  imply  that  we 
shall  know  everything.  The  thought  of  eternity 
would  be  awful  and  confounding  if  it  were  not 
that  we  have  to  spend  it  with  an  infinite  God. 
No  ghastlier  vision  has  risen  before  our  later 
seers  than  that  of  an  immortality  without  God. 
If  eternity  had  to  be  spent  with  the  limitations 
of  finitude  we  should  grow  weary  and  sick  of  life. 
The  endless  existence  would  become  intolerably 
burdensome.  Our  joy  is  that  Christ  is  exhaust- 
less.  Only  there  will  be  no  mysteries,  no 
locked  doors  in  His  palace — doors  infinite,  but 
every  one  of  them  opening  to  our  touch— to  be 

G 


98  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 

explored  throughout  the  endless  ages.  We 
shall  understand  His  purpose  and  read  His 
heart — close  to  Him  as  a  loving  wife  is  to  her 
husband. 

4.  Again,  the  image  carries  with  it  the  idea 
of  satisfaction.  Each  satisfies  the  other  ;  each 
ministers  to  the  happiness  of  the  other.  He 
satisfies  us.  We  are  told  that  He  does  so  by 
ending  all  our  sorrows  and  fulfilling  all  our 
desires.  He  wipes  every  tear  from  our  eyes. 
Life  has  been  so  difficult  and  so  hard  that  even 
at  the  entrance  into  bliss  there  linger  on  our 
cheeks  traces  of  what  we  have  had  to  bear,  but 
these  He  removes,  and  they  never  return. 
There  is  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow  nor 
crying.  The  shadow  of  the  curse  is  for  ever 
gone,  and  the  former  things  have  passed  away. 
The  virtue  which  is  one  of  the  highest  in  our 
present  state,  that,  namely,  of  resignation,  needs 
to  be  exercised  no  longer  ;  only,  as  Butler  says, 
it  is  by  the  practice  of  this  virtue  that  we  have 
been  prepared  for  the  time  when  it  is  no  longer 
necessary.  There  is  a  complete  absence  of 
everything  that  once  disquieted  us — no  shadow 
left  upon  past,  present,  or  future. 

He  supplies  our  needs  as  they  rise.     He  feeds 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB.     99 

US  and  leads  us  by  living  fountains  of  water. 
The  Lamb  feeds  us ;  the  Shepherd  is  of  the 
same  nature  as  the  flock,  and  knows  their  needs 
and  supplies  them.  A  very  important  part  of 
the  symbolism  of  the  Paschal  Lamb  was  that  X 

after  it  was  sacrificed  it  was  eaten  by  the  family. 
So  we  feed  upon  Christ ;  all  our  wants  are 
supplied  from  the  exhaustless  treasury  of  His 
own  nature.  As  if  this  were  not  enough  He 
leads  us  by  living  fountains  of  water  —  the 
deep  fountains  that  flow  by  the  throne.  No 
desire  is  indulged  in  vain,  all  are  met  to  the  full. 
On  our  side  we  satisfy  Him.  His  servants 
shall  serve  Him.  His  slaves,  more  literally, 
shall  serve  Him  as  priests.  The  word  "slave"  in 
this  book  loses  all  its  associations  of  humility, 
and  is  lifted  up  to  a  position  of  transcendent 
dignity.  We  spend  eternity  in  the  exercise  of 
activity  and  obedience.  Heaven  is  a  prolonga- 
tion of  the  multiform  activities  of  life  in  their 
intensity.  If  men  have  cherished  the  idea  of  a 
lazy  psalm-singing  heaven,  they  have  not  found 
it  in  the  Bible.  Here  are  words  that  we  misfht 
have  found  brand  new  in  some  magazine  of  the 
month — "  His  servants  shall  serve  Him."  Only 
all  their  service  is  to  be  priestly  service.     Even 


lOO    THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 

down  here,  the  commonest  acts  of  our  hfe  done 
with  a  thought  of  love  "  as  to  the  Lord,"  flash 
up  into  worship. 

"  Nothing  can  be  so  mean, 
But  with  this  tincture  for  thy  sake, 
Doth  not  grow  bright  and  clean." 

Consciously  related  to  Him  and  advancing  His 
glory,  we  serve  as  priests. 

After  a  certain  experience  of  life  the  craving 
of  most  men  is  for  rest.  The  word  seems  to 
hold  in  it  everything  that  is  good  for  them. 
They  have  become  so  weary  of  the  labour  and 
the  conflict  that  they  desire  to  be  done  with  all 
for  ever,  and  nothing  attracts  them  like  the 
description  of  the  place  of  rest.  But  were  the 
rest  reached,  after  a  time  it  would  become  more 
irksome  than  the  labour.  The  faculties  would 
crave  to  be  again  employed,  and  so  we  read 
that  heaven  is  a  state  of  perfect  rest,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  state  of  intense  activity. 
Only  there  is  nothing  here  of  the  modern 
adoration  of  w^ork.  Life,  it  has  been  well  said, 
is  not  for  learning,  neither  is  life  for  working, 
but  learning  and  working  are  for  life.  While 
they  work  they  gaze  on  His  face.  Meditation 
and  contemplation  so  hard  to  combine  in  this 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB.     10 1 

life  in  fit  measure  are  perfectly  united  there. 
The  Martha  and  the  Mary,  whom  we  so  rarely 
find  in  harmony,  do  not  any  more  conflict  with 
one  another.  We  dwell  in  Him  in  peaceful 
contemplation,  in  quiet  communion,  in  medita- 
tive gaze,  and  at  the  same  time  we  serve  Him 
with  all  the  perfected  energies  of  our  being. 

And  by  meditation  we  satisfy  Him  even  as 
by  action.  The  great  desire  of  Christ  for  His 
people  on  earth  is  that  they  should  remember 
Him.  He  loves  their  service,  but  He  does  not 
value  a  mechanical  activity  that  takes  no  thought 
of  Him,  and  does  not  consciously  render  itself 
up  to  Him.  "This  do,"  He  said,  "in  remem- 
brance of  Me."  In  heaven  His  love  is  satisfied 
by  His  ever  dwelling  in  the  faithful  heart  of  the 
bride,  and  by  her  faithful  eyes  never  being  taken 
away  from  His  face. 

Besides  this,  we  satisfy  Him  by  perfectly  re- 
flecting His  character.  His  name  is  written  on 
our  brows.  His  character  is  visible  and  manifest 
before  all  who  look.  As  the  servants  of  the 
great  Antichrist  bear  the  marks  of  the  Beast,  so 
the  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect  bear  the 
mark  of  Jesus.  His  name  is  His  character, 
and  the  image  means  that  His  face  paints  itself 


I02    THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 

upon  ours,  that,  mirror-like,  we  reflect  His 
beauty.  "  Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God, 
and  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be ; 
but  we  know  that  when  He  shall  appear  we 
shall  be  like  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him  as 
He  is." 

III. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  asked,  what  light  do 
these  meditations  throw  upon  two  great  ques- 
tions often  and  earnestly  asked  ? 

I.  Shall  we  know  our  friends  in  heaven  .?  One 
after  another  they  fall  by  our  side,  till  at  last  a 
shadow  is  cast  over  every  good  -  night  and 
good-bye,  and  life  comes  to  be  a  journey  into 
the  wilderness,  there  to  die  alone.  Yet  we  do 
not  cease  to  love  them  and  desire  them.  Long 
lost,  they  are  longer  dear  ;  and  the  question  we 
put  is — "  Is  the  Love  of  the  Lamb  so  jealous 
and  so  strong  as  to  absorb  and  consume  all 
meaner  passions,  leaving  no  room  for  any  but 
the  one  affection  }  "  The  answer  is  to  be  dis- 
covered by  putting  another  question — "  Do  we 
find  that  our  love  for  Christ  weakens  our  love 
for  those  who  share  with  His  supreme  affec- 
tion ? "     Is  it  true  that  all  who  love  one  another 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB.    IO3 

before  they  were  in  Christ,  love  one  another  less 
when  they  pass  from  darkness  into  light  ?  Is  it 
not  emphatically  the  contrary  ?  Are  not  all 
other  loves  hallowed,  ennobled,  and  eternised 
by  this  other  affection  ?  The  love  of  Christ 
includes  our  love  for  all  those  who  are  in  Christ. 
It  intensifies  and  perpetuates  the  earthly  affec- 
tion, and  any  heavenly  love  that  does  otherwise 
is  diseased  and  perverted. 

"He  who  being  bold 
For  life  to  come  is  false  to  the  past  sweet 
Of  mortal  life,  hath  killed  the  world  above. 
For  why  to  live  again,  if  not  to  meet  ? 
And  why  to  meet,  if  not  to  meet  in  love  ? 
And  why  in  love  if  not  in  that  dear  love  of  old  1 " 

"  The  sun,  the  more  bright,  and  glorious,  and 
gladdening,  and  life-elevating  it  is,  is  not  neces- 
sarily on  that  account  the  only  thing  to  be 
looked  at  and  thought  of;  it  is  seen  in  the 
light  it  gives,  and  thought  of  for  the  delight  it 
gives.  So  even  in  another  world  may  it  be 
with  God  :  the  clearer  we  see  Him,  the  better 
and  more  rightly  may  we  see  and  know  all 
besides  Him,  all  His  creatures,  and  all  that  He 
has  made.  We  have  no  reason  to  think  that 
our  fellow  beings  will  be  less  interesting  to  us 


I04    THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB. 

or  less  cared  for  by  us  there  than  here.  It  is 
the  nearer  presence  and  the  clearer  view  of 
Him  which  will  be  the  source  of  the  truer 
understanding  of  and  better  sympathy  with 
them."  * 

2.  Another  question  is,  Can  we  conceive  of 
heaven  as  material  or  is  eternity  to  be  thought 
of  under  spiritual  conceptions  which  bar  the 
efforts  of  imagination  ?  In  reply,  we  say  that 
the  fact  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  implies 
that  heaven  is  a  place  in  some  sense  material. 
The  imagination  may  dream  as  it  will.  Con- 
ceive if  you  will  all  that  you  most  desire — the 
old  home,  the  old  hill  and  streams,  the  dear 
old  faces,  for  no  conception  will  come  near  the 
reality.  The  highest  hopes  of  future  blessedness 
are  wise,  and  modest,  and  sober,  when  we  consider 
who  it  is  that  is  preparing  the  place,  and  for 
whom  He  is  preparing  it.  But  many  will  be 
content  to  leave  it  to  Him.  He  knows  best. 
When  His  time  comes  He  will  make  it  known 
to  us.  He  is  busy  behind  the  veil  with  a  tender 
thought  for  every  separate  soul  that  is  at  last  -i- 
to  be  with  Him.     He  prepares  a  fitting  place 

*  From  a  suggestive  fragment,  "  On  a  Future  State,"  by  the       , 
late  Professor  Grote.      Cont.  Rr<.'.,  Aug.  1871.  * 


THE  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  LAMB.  IO5 

for  each  ;  and,  when  the  right  moment  comes, 
He  will  put  forth  His  hand  and  roll  back  the 
curtain  on  its  rings,  "  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my 
Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you 
from  before  the  foundation  of  the  world." 

Then — when  sun  nor  moon, 
Time  nor  death  finds  place, 
Seeing  in  the  eternal  noon 
Thy  face. 

Then — when  tears  and  sighing 
Changes,  sorrows  cease, 
Living  by  Thy  life  undying 
In  peace. 

Then — when  all  creation 
Keeps  its  jubilee. 

Crowned,  discrowned  in  adoration 
Of  Thee. 


VII. 
THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB. 


Recordare,  Jesu  pie, 
Quod  sura  causa  tuae  viae, 
Ne  me  perdas  ilia  die. 

Me  remember.  Saviour — one, 

For  whose  soul  Thy  course  was  run, 

Lest  I  be  that  day  undone. 


VII. 

THE   WRATH   OF   THE   LAMB. 

The  idea  of  the  element  of  wrath  existing  in 
the  character  of  God  is  most  unwelcome  to 
many  minds,  and  still  more  unwelcome  is  the 
thought  that  it  should  be  an  attribute  of  the 
gentle  Christ.  But  Christ  came  to  reveal  God, 
the  whole  God — not  an  incomplete  and  limited 
deity.  Hence  we  should  expect  to  find  not 
one  side  but  all  sides  of  God  represented  in 
Him.  Thus,  the  real  question  is  not,  whether 
wrath  exists  in  Christ,  but  whether  it  is  an 
attribute  in  God.  Now  we  accept  the  fact  that 
it  is  so,  not  merely  on  the  ground  of  scriptural 
statements,  not  merely  on  that  of  actual  ex- 
perience, but  for  the  reason  that  in  every  com- 
plete and  strong  moral  character  the  attribute 
of  wrath  must  exist.  Few  essential  elements 
of  human  nature  have  been  so  distorted  and 
perverted  as  this,  and  so  generally  associated 
with  sin.  But  this  does  not  prove  that  sin  is 
necessarily  connected  with  anger.     There  is  a 


I  lO     THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB. 

righteous  indignation,  however  rarely  it  may 
be  seen  in  man — an  indignation  which  is  a 
passion  in  behalf  of  order,  truth,  righteousness, 
purity ;  not  a  heat  of  revenge  springing  from 
personal  grudge,  but  a  quality  essential  to  a 
perfect  nature,  and  this  we  find  in  God  the 
Father  and  in  Jesus  Christ  the  Lamb  of  God. 
It  is  impossible  to  define  this  feeling.  We  may 
state  its  effects,  but  the  feeling  is  an  ultimate 
one  incapable  of  analysis.* 

To  complete  our  picture  of  the  Lamb  of 
God  the  shadows  must  be  inserted  as  well  as 
the  light.  But  we  do  not  mean  to  enter  into 
the  large  and  difficult  questions  connected  with 
the  future  of  the  wicked.  We  merely  touch 
upon  those  lights  thrown  upon  that  future  by 
the  expression  which  heads  the  chapter,  "  The 
wrath  of  the  Lamb." 


The  wrath  of  the  Lamb  is  primarily  the 
wrath  of  a  rejected  Redeemer.  It  is  indigna- 
tion   not   so    much    against   sin    as   such,   but 

*  Hence  the  fallacy  of  such  definitions  as  "  the  self-vindicat- 
ing attitude  of  the  divine  mind."  That  is  not  the  feeling,  but 
one  of  its  results. 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB.  I  1  I 

aga.lnst  the  sin  that  refuses  to  accept  and  trust 
Christ. 

Every  careful  reader  of  Christ's  Hfe  must 
have  observed  that  sin  did  not  affect  Him  with 
the  shudder  and  recoil  that  we  should  have 
expected.  We  should  have  imagined  that  one 
who  is  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  iniquity 
and  cannot  bear  to  look  upon  evil,  would  have 
turned  with  horror  and  shrinking  from  the 
manifestations  of  the  power  of  sin  that  met 
Him  on  every  hand.  But,  instead  of  that,  we 
find  that  He  speaks  of  sin  calmly.  We  find 
that  He  sits  with  publicans  and  sinners  as  their 
guest,  and  exposes  Himself  to  the  taunts  of 
those  who  call  Him  a  glutton  and  a  wine-bibber, 
the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners.  A  writer 
on  the  life  of  Christ  has  attempted  to  explain 
Christ's  attitude  when  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery  was  brought  before  Him,  as  caused  by 
shame.  When  He  cast  his  eyes  down  to  the 
ground  and  wrote  upon  it,  and  did  not  lift 
them  until  the  people  were  all  gone.  His  cheeks, 
it  is  supposed,  were  suffused  with  the  blush  of 
shame.  Many  readers  may  have  perceived  the 
unsatisfactoriness  of  this  without  being  able  to 
give  a  reason  for  their  feeling.    The  reason  may 


I  I  2  THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB. 

be  here.  We  might,  any  of  us,  have  blushed 
at  such  a  sight,  but  our  blush  would  have  been 
a  confession  of  the  solidarity  of  the  race — of 
our  share  in  our  sister's  sin.  But  He  knew  no 
sin,  and,  knowing  no  sin,  knew  no  shame. 
Where  shame  exists  sin  exists.  He  was  pure 
from  sin,  and  so  He  looked  upon  our  sins,  not 
with  the  consciousness  of  one  who  has  been  or 
may  be  guilty  of  the  same  misdeeds,  but  as 
God  has  looked  and  does  look. 

Very  different  is  His  attitude  towards  one 
particular  sin  on  which  the  conscience  of  the 
great  majority  scarcely  speaks  at  all — the  sin  of 
unbelief.  There  are  many  who  would  be  struck 
with  shame  and  terror  if  they  had  committed  any 
other  great  sin  who  are  never  visited  by  one 
pang  at  the  thought  that  they  are  committing 
this.  But  to  Christ  it  was  the  sin  of  sins.  He 
marvelled  at  it,  we  are  told.  It  seemed  to  Him 
the  most  astonishing  and  unreasonable  thing 
in  the  universe — the  one  unreasonable,  indeed 
— for  although  there  are  thousands  of  excuses 
for  it,  reasons  there  are  none — excuses  enough 
to  build  a  wall  between  the  soul  and  its  Saviour, 
but  no  reason.  The  one  inexplicable  thing  in 
the    universe    is    neither   God,    nor    hell,    nor 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB.  I  I  3 

sorrow,  nor  sin — it  is  unbelief.  That  men 
should  look  at  Him  and  not  trust  Him — that 
men  dying  for  want  of  love,  and  peace,  and 
hope,  and  rest,  should  refuse  to  put  out  a  finger 
to  grasp  them  when  they  are  all  put  within 
their  reach — this  is  the  real  wonder  of  the  uni- 
verse. That  men  should  believe  that  they  are 
to  die  and  face  judgment  and  eternity — should 
know  that  they  need  salvation,  and  that  Christ 
is  the  Saviour,  and  yet  do  nothing — that  is 
the  one  thing  that  moves  the  marvel  of  Christ ; 
and  it  was  that  which  moved  His  tears.  He 
wept  over  the  city  that  refused  to  be  gathered. 
It  moved  His  anger — this  hardness  of  men's 
hearts.  His  breast  was  shaken  with  wonder, 
and  sorrow,  and  pity,  and  anger  at  the  sin  of 
sins — unbelief.  A  homely  illustration  may  help 
to  make  His  feeling  clearer.  If  we  had  within 
our  power  a  remedy  which  could  heal  every 
disease  to  which  flesh  is  heir,  I  suppose  we 
should  not  look  much  at  the  diseases,  but  urge 
the  taking  of  the  remedy.  We  should  not  care 
to  listen  to  the  varied  tales  of  pain  and  sorrow 
poured  into  our  ears ;  we  should  say,  it  is 
enough  that  here  is  a  remedy  to  meet  every 
need.  And  if  it  were  conceivable  that  any 
H 


114     THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB. 

should  refuse  the  remedy,  that  refusal  would 
seem  to  us  so  strange  and  so  terrible  that  we 
should  have  no  power  to  think  of  anything 
besides.  That  may  be  how  it  seemed  to  Christ; 
He  knew  that  He  could  heal  all  the  world's 
disease  and  meet  all  the  world's  need  ;  and  the 
wonder  of  wonders  and  the  pain  of  pains  was 
that  needy,  dying  men  should  refuse  Him. 

So  the  sin  for  which  the  Lamb  will  judge 
and  visit  with  His  wrath  will  be  primarily 
the  sin  of  unbelief,  the  sin  of  rejecting  Him 
in  His  great  salvation.  "  Could  the  despisers 
of  Christ's  love  be  well  pleasing  to  God, 
love  would  declare  its  own  work  superfluous." 
This  comes  home  specially  to  all  who  have 
heard  the  message  of  the  Gospel.  Whatever 
light  there  may  be  in  the  future  for  those  who 
have  never  heard,  there  is  darkness  for  those 
who,  having  heard,  have  rejected  and  dis- 
believed ;  and  the  darkness  comes  because  they 
refused.  "  The  sin  rendering  the  individual 
absolutely  bad  can  only  be  the  personal  guilt  of 
rejecting  Christ,  in  which,  of  course,  rejection  of 
good  itself  is  included,  and  therefore  acqui- 
escence in  all  other  possible  sin."  * 

*  See  Dorner's  "  Christian  Doctrine,"  iv.  423. 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB.  T  1  5 

II. 

The  wrath  of  the  Lamb  must  be  a  wrath 
that  can  be  justified.  It  is  not  like  so  much  of 
the  anger  of  this  world,  unreasonable,  hasty,  and 
vindictive.  It  is  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb,  most 
gentle,  most  pitiful,  most  merciful,  most  long- 
suffering.  Some  have  said  that  the  wrath  of 
the  Lamb  must  be  terrible  because  it  is  love 
turned  to  anger.  There  is  no  fire,  it  has  been 
said,  like  the  sheen  of  a  dead  affection ;  no 
enemy  like  one  that  has  once  been  a  friend. 
*'  To  be  wroth  with  one  we  love  doth  work  like 
madness  in  the  brain,"  But  while  this  is  true  of 
men,  we  cannot  affirm  it  in  the  same  way  about 
Christ,  because  this  very  excess  of  resentment 
and  passion  is  often  an  infirmity  and  a  sin.  We 
may  say  that  in  Christ,  as  the  flame  of  love  is 
purer  and  stronger,  so  the  flame  of  anger  may 
be ;  but  we  cannot  say  that  anything  in  His 
anger  is  passionate  or  vindictive. 

The  truth  pressed  on  us  is  that  we  shall  have 
no  defender  when  the  Lamb  ceases  to  plead  for 
us.  No  one  is  so  abundant  in  the  resources  of 
mercy  and  patience,  and  when  His  resources  are 
exhausted,  on  whose  shall  we  fall  back  ?    One  of 


I  I  6  THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB. 

the  greatest  difficulties  in  connection  with  future 
punishment  has  been  how  to  understand  the 
happiness  of  the  blessed  in  connection  with  the 
misery  of  the  lost.  How  can  we  be  glad  in 
heaven  while  they  are  punished  in  hell .''  Now, 
whatever  the  punishment  of  sin  may  be,  this  at 
least  is  certain,  that  it  will  be  a  punishment  that 
l^^ill  meet  with  the  complete  acquiescence  of  the 
whole  moral  universe.  That  is  the  meaning  of 
such  texts  as  "Again  they  said  Alleluiah,  and  her 
smoke  rose  up  for  ever  and  ever."  That  seems 
terrible,  but  how  much  more  awful  if  they  did 
not  acquiesce  ;  how  much  more  awful  if  the  lost 
went  to  their  doom  with  the  sympathy  of  the 
blessed.  Nor  would  it  be  enough  if  the  blessed 
merely  resigned  themselves  to  the  will  of  God 
in  this  dispensation.  The  only  solution  that 
can  be  borne  is  that  the  justice  and  righteous- 
ness of  God  in  the  punishment  of  the  lost  are  so 
completely  vindicated,  that  the  blessed  will 
suffer  them  to  go  to  their  doom  without  one 
tear  or  pang. 

Here  we  touch  on  a  dark  and  perplexed 
subject.  But  are  there  not  indications  even  in 
this  confused  existence  which  help  us  to  under- 
stand it  ?     Are  those  really  the  most  merciful 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB.  I  I  7 

who  refuse  to  condemn  sin  and  crime  ?  Are 
there  not  crimes  that  move  a  man  to  thank  God 
that  Tophet  is  ordained  of  old  ?  Do  not  even 
the  most  merciful  feel  sometimes  a  joy  in  the 
thought  that  the  cruel,  the  brutal,  and  the 
wicked  have  been  brought  to  their  punishment 
and  their  doom  ?  What  is  thought  of  the  moral 
state  of  a  country  where  murder  and  outrag^ 
prevail  unchecked  by  public  opinion,  and  where 
those  convicted  of  the  most  brutal  crimes  perish 
with  the  sympathy  of  their  fellows?  Is  this  not 
held  rightly  to  show  that  the  land  has  been  de- 
'  moralised,  that  conscience  has  been  stupefied  or 
deadened,  and  is  it  not  regarded  as  showing  the 
necessity  for  moral  awakening,  so  that  crime 
shall  be  looked  on  in  its  true  light?  When 
those  who  have  power  and  wealth  given  to 
them  use  the  power  to  crush  and  oppress  the 
weak,  who  does  not  heave  a  sigh  of  relief  when 
the  long  tyranny  of  such  a  life  is  ended  ?  Who 
does  not  rejoice  that  the  strong  one  has  met 
with  the  stronger  at  last  ?  When  the  purest  and 
noblest  feeling  of  the  soul  is  perverted  into  a 
vile  and  cancerous  passion,  destroying  the 
objects  on  which  it  feeds,  who  will  protest  when 
retribution  comes  to  the  seducer  ?     Is  there  not 


I  1 8  THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB. 

such  a  thing  to  be  seen  on  earth  as  even  the 
most  bhnd  and  faithful  love  opening  its  eyes 
and  turning  away — father  and  mother  saying  at 
last,  "  Every  spark  of  divine  light  has  gone  out, 
and  I  can  love  no  more."  And  may  it  not, 
must  it  not  be  supposed  that  there  will  be  a 
similar  acquiescence  in  God's  judgment  at  the 
last  .-*  that  the  judgment,  whatever  it  may  be, 
will  not  shock,  revolt,  and  confound  the  moral 
sense,  but  will  carry  with  it  the  full  acquiescence 
of  every  pure  and  righteous  spirit .''  In  saying 
this  we  by  no  means  assent  to  the  monstrous 
doctrine — ultimately  subversive  of  all  religion — 
that  our  consciences  here  give  us  no  real  know- 
ledge of  good  and  evil.  Nor  do  we  deny  that 
there  are  theories  of  future  punishment  to  which 
the  conscience  could  never  in  any  future  consent. 
What  we  affirm  is  that  the  punishment  of  the 
wicked,  be  it  what  it  may,  will  commend  itself  to 
the  conscience  of  the  righteous,  and  will  be  recog- 
nised even  by  themselves  as  just.  The  lost  soul 
"  has  been  under  an  infinitely  beneficent  system  of 
trial.  Everything  he  has  known  of  God  has  as- 
sumed the  benign  form  of  a  dissuasion  from  sin ; 
his  experience  has  generated  countless  motives 
to  obedience  ;  his  steps  have  been  thronged  by 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB.      I  IQ 

them  as  by  pleading  spirits  ;  but  for  his  guilt 
his  conscience  alone  would  have  been  an  ever 
present  song  of  God's  love  to  him  ;    if  he  has 
had  Christian    training   the   disclosures   of  re- 
demption  have   opened    upon    him    the   most 
intense  system  of  allurements  to  believers  known 
in  the  universe ;  the  teachings  of  wise  men,  the 
prayers  of  good    men,  the  visions  of  inspired 
men,   and    the   ministrations   of    angels,   have 
stretched  a  cordon  of  holy  sympathies  around 
him  ;  the  cross  of  Christ  has  blocked  his  way  to 
destruction  more  impassably  than  by  a  flaming 
sword  ;  intercession  in  heaven  has  been  made 
for  him  with  hands  uplifted  in  which  were  the 
prints  of  the  nails  ;  the  Holy  Spirit  has  striven 
to  turn  him  back  by  all  the  devices  which  in- 
finite ingenuity  could  frame  at  the  bidding  of 
infinite  compassion ;   his  history  has  been  one 
long  struggle  against  obstacles  to  the  suicide  of 
his  soul ;   he  has  sought    out,  and    discovered, 
and  selected,  and  seized  upon,  and  made  sure 
of  his  own  way,  over  and  around  and  through 
them  to  the  world  of  despair.     He  has  done  it — 
he,  and  not  another.    Such  is  every  lost  life.    Is  it 
any  marvel  that  a  lost  soul  is  speechless }  "  * 

*  See  Austin  Phelps  "  Human  Responsibility,''  and  Dorner 
as  alcove,  p,  423, 


I  20      THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB. 

III. 

The  wrath  of  the  Lamb  is  a  personal 
infliction.  Some  have  sought  to  relieve 
the  difficulties  connected  with  this  question, 
by  saying  that  future  punishment  is  simply 
a  self-executing  law  of  the  universe,  the  in- 
evitable consequence  following  upon  trans- 
gression. But  to  accept  such  a  doctrine 
would  be  to  withdraw  the  punishment  of  sin 
from  the  conscience  of  the  sinner.  Punish- 
ment would  then  simply  work  upon  fear,  and 
on  nothing  beside  ;  and  righteousness  would 
come  to  be  nothing  more  than  selfish  prudence. 
Now,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Bible  view  repre- 
sents sin  and  righteousness  as  a  relation  be- 
tween persons.  Duty  is  more  than  the  recog- 
nition of  a  naked  law ;  when  we  commit  sin  we 
wrong  others,  and  we  wrong  a  power  which 
bound  us  not  to  wrong  them.  The  punishment 
of  sin  is  to  come  face  to  face  with  that  living 
power  and  be  judged  by  it  at  last* 

In  the  whole  discipline  of  our  life,  Qhrist 
strives  to  bring  us  face  to  face  with    Himself. 

*  See  Wace's  "  Christianity  and  Morality,"  p.  53. 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB.  I  2  I 

Wherever  we  meet  with  even  the  least  of  His 
brethren,  we  meet  with  Him.  He  is  sick,  sad, 
unvisited.  He  shivers  unclothed,  He  languishes 
in  prison,  He  is  the  stranger  that  knocks  at  our 
door.  It  is  He  whom  we  persecute,  when  we 
lift  our  hands  against  His  truth.  He  feels  afresh, 
as  the  old  hymn  says,  "what  every  member 
bears."  When  we  reject  His  messenger,  we 
reject  Himself  He  meets  us  at  every  turn  of 
our  life,  and  the  thought  of  Him  is  inseparably 
bound  up  with  the  familiar  objects  and  actions 
of  our  existence.  He  is  the  way,  the  truth, 
the  life,  the  bread,  the  water,  the  door,  the 
shepherd,  the  star,  the  sun.  To  everything  He 
has  attached  some  association  of  Himself,  that 
we  may,  as  it  were,  live  face  to  face  with  Him ; 
and  so  whenever  we  commit  sin  we  deal  with 
Him,  and  we  grow  at  last  into  the  meaning  of 
this  old  agony  of  confession — "Against  Thee, 
Thee  only  have  I  sinned." 

Scripture  teaches  that  a  day  is  coming  when 
the  whole  account  of  the  universe  shall  be 
sumrned  up,  and  when  all  shall  receive  the  due 
reward  of  their  deeds.  The  world's  history  is 
not  of  itself  sufficient  to  be  the  world's  judg- 
ment,     Christ  will    sit    upon    the   great  white 


122      THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB, 

throne  upon  that  day,  the  central  figure  to  which 
all  eyes  turn.  We  shall  come  face  to  face  yet 
more  unmistakably  with  Him  with  whom  we 
have  been  dealing  all  our  life.  We  shall  see  Him 
there  as  Judge  whom  we  knew  of  old  as  Saviour, 
and  He  will  judge  every  one  of  us  according  to 
our  works.  What  will  give  its  power  to  the 
judgment  will  be  that  He  judges — He  who 
died  for  us.  The  intense  moral  effort  that  it 
costs  a  God  of  infinite  love  to  deal  thus  with  the 
sinner,  will  give  the  judgment  its  power  over 
the  conscience  and  the  heart.  We  shall  come 
face  to  face  with  Him  who  wept  over  Jerusalem, 
and  the  eyes  that  were  once  as  fountains  of 
water  will  be  as  a  flame  of  fire.  It  is  a  terrible 
thing  to  be  ground  in  pieces  by  the  law,  but 
much  more  terrible  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  living  Christ. 

So  much  we  may  affirm  ;  but  many  questions 
rise  to  which  we  can  give  no  answer.  There 
are  awful  breadths  of  promise  and  doom  which 
our  Lord  has  not  seen  good  to  light  up,  and 
into  which  our  search  is  vain.  This  much  is 
clear,  that  "the  New  Testament  is  a  very 
severe  as  well  as  a  very  hopeful  book.  It  takes 
a  very  severe  view  of  the  world,  and   of  the 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB.      I  23 

ways  and  conduct  of  men.     And  certainly  our 
Lord's  own  teaching  is  not  the  least  stern  part 
of  it.     Look  at  it  carefully  and  you  will  find 
how  large  a  proportion  the  language  of  rebuke 
and  warning  bears  to  the  language  of  consola- 
tion   and    promise ;    the    one   is    as   grave,    as 
anxious,  as  alarming,  as  the  other  is  gracious 
beyond  all  our  hopes.  ...  Of  the  closing  re- 
tribution our  Lord  has  used  words  and  figures 
which    have    graven    themselves   deep   in   the 
memory    and    imagination    of    mankind — the 
eternal   punishment,   the  fire  that  never   shall 
be    quenched,    the   worm    that    dieth   not,    the 
place  of  torment  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his 
angels.     What  could  our  Saviour  mean  us  to 
understand   by  all  this  ?      Surely  He  did   not 
mean  simply  to  frighten  us.     Surely  He  meant 
us  to  take  His  words  as  true.     We  may  put 
aside  the  New  Testament  altogether ;    but   if 
we  profess  to  be  guided  by  it,  "  is  there  any- 
thing but  'a  certain  fearful  looking  for  of  judg- 
ment   and     fiery     indignation '    for    obstinate, 
impenitent,  unforgiven  sin,  sin  without  excuse 
and  without  change."* 

So  He  turns  round  to  us  as  of  old  when  we  put 

*  Church's  "  Human  Life,"  p.  102. 


1 24     THE  WRATH  OF  THE  LAMB. 

our  questions,  and  says,  "  Take  heed  to  your- 
selves." Our  own  personal  and  separate  interest 
let  us  at  least  make  sure  of.  He  is  the  Lamb ; 
none  perish  that  ,'put  their  trust  in  Him.  Let 
us  trust  Him  for  ourselves — for  what  we  know, 
for  what  we  do  not  know.  Through  all  the 
awful  hazards  of  the  future  He  will  lead  us  if 
we  cling  to  Him.  Passing  the  time  of  our 
sojourning  here  in  fear,  we  shall  be  kept  by 
the  'power  of  God  ;  and  at  the  last  He  will 
shew  us  His  salvation. 

When  earth  and  sea  shall  empty  all 
Their  graves  of  great  and  small ; 

When  earth  wrapped  in  a  fiery  flood 
Shall  no  more  hide  her  blood  ; 

When  mysteries  shall  be  revealed, 
All  secrets  be  unsealed  ; 

Then  Awful  Judge,  most  Awful  God, 
Then  cause  to  bud  Thy  rod. 

To  bloom  with  blossoms,  and  to  give 
Almonds  ;  yea,  bid  us  live. 

I  plead  myself  with  Thee  ;  I  plead 
Thee  in  our  utter  need ; 

Jesus,  most  Merciful  of  men 
Show  mercy  on  us  then  ; 

Lord  God  of  Mercy  and  of  Men, 
Show  mercy  on  us  then. 


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132  PRINCES  STREET,  EDINBURGH. 


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132  PRINCES  STREET,  EDINBURGH. 
I 


Books  published  by  Macniven  &^   Wallace. 

Edited  by  Professor  SALMOND,  D.D. 

This  Series  is  intended  to  provide  text-books  abreast  of  the  scholar- 
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"For  fulness  of  information,  clearness  of  consideration,  and  for  a 
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guarantees  their  high  quality  and  evangelical  character." — Christian. 

"Will  be  of  immense  benefit  to  the  cause  of  Bible  knowledge 
throughout  the  land. " — Daily  Review. 

"  The  issue  of  such  volumes  in  which  trained  professional  skill  puts 
itself  at  the  service  of  babes  marks  a  new  and  hopeful  era  in  religious 
instruction." — Aberdeen  Free  Press. 


132  PRINCES  STREET,  EDINBURGH. 


Books  published  by  Macniveti  ^   Wallace. 

IJibk  €ljt00  JJrimer0 — continued. 

Edited   by   Professor   SALMOND,   D.D. 

LIFE  OF  DAVID— 

By  the  late  Rev.  Peter  Thomson,  M.A.,  St  Fergus. 
(One   of  the   Contributors   to   the   Teachers'   Bible.) 
With  Maps.      Seventh   Thousand.      Cloth,  price  8d. ; 
paper,  6d. 

The  Dean  of  Norwich  (E.  M.  Goulbum,  D.D.)  says  : — "  The  writer 
seems  to  treat  his  subject  both  succinctly  and  learnedly,  and,  while  say- 
ing nothing  to  impair  the  reverence  which  should  be  paid  to  Holy 
Scripture  as  God's  inspired  Word,  to  keep  abreast  of  the  literature  of 
the  day  and  the  progress  which  has  been  made  in  the  knowledge  of 
Hebrew." 

The  Dean  of  Lichfield  (Ed.  Bickersteth,  D.D.)  says  :—"  The  little 
book  shows  more  than  ordinary  scholarship  and  culture,  and  it  appears 
to  me  to  be  full  of  information  given  in  an  interesting  and  original  form. 
I  can  heartily  recommend  it  for  the  purpose  for  which  you  have  pub- 
lished it." 

The  Dean  of  Peterborough  (J.  J.  Stewart  Perrowne,  D.D.)  says  : — 
"It  seems  to  me  to  be  very  well  executed,  and  likely  to  be  very  useful  to 
teachers,  and  I  shall  be  glad  to  recommend  it.  The  arrangement  in 
paragraphs  with  headings  adds  much  to  its  usefulness  for  reference,  and 
also  enables  pupils  to  master  it  more  readily." 

The  Eev.  T.  K.  Cheyne  says  : — "It  is  evidently  the  work  of  much 
study.  The  accuracy  of  the  facts  and  the  simplicity  of  the  style  should 
commend  it  to  the  attention  of  teachers." 

The  Rev.  Stanley  Leathes,  D.D.,  says: — "I  think  it  is  excellent 
indeed,  and  have  seen  nothing  of  the  kind  so  good  ;  and  if  the  rest  of 
the  series  are  worthy  of  this,  they  are  very  valuable." 

The  Rev.  Samuel  Cox  says: — "Mr  Thomson  has  told  the  story  in 
the  simplest  language  and  the  briefest  compass,  so  that  even  the 
children  in  a  Sunday-school  class  may  read  it  with  understanding  and 
without  weariness  ;  while  even  the  most  accomplished  scholar  will  find 
hints  in  it  which  will  be  welcome  and  helpful  to  him." 

The  Rev.  Professor  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.D.,  says  ; — "It  is  a  very  superior 
and  satisfactory  performance,  admirably  fitted  for  its  purpose.  It  is  at 
once  popular  and  scholarly  ;  the  reproduction  of  the  story  is  vivid  and 
fitted  to  interest  young  minds ;  and  there  is  not  a  trace  of  slovenly 
inaccuracy.  The  little  book  is  also  very  healthy  in  its  religious  tone. 
A  spirit  of  real,  reverent,  manly  piety  pervades  it ;  just  such  a  spirit  as 
is  fitted  to  impress  young  minds,  and  as  I  greatly  desire  to  see  spreading 
among  our  rising  youth." 


132  PRINCES  STREET,   EDINBURGH. 


Books  published  by  Macniven  &^   Wallace. 

^ibU  ClTlass  JJ rimer© — continued. 
Edited  by   Professor   S ALMOND,    D.D. 

LIFE  OF  MOSES—  - 

By  the  Rev.  James  Iverach,  M.A.,  Aberdeen.      With 
Map.     Sixteenth  Thousand.     Cloth,  Sd. ;  paper,  6d. 

*'  A  very  model  of  the  way  in  which  accurate  and  complete  informa- 
tion may  be  compressed  into  a  small  space,  without  the  sacrifice  of 
vividness  or  interest." — Samuel  G.  Green,  D.D. 

•'Accurately  done,  clear,  mature,  and  scholarly." — Christian. 

"Thoroughly  maintains  the  high  character  of  the  first  volume.  .  .  . 
It  is  within  the  reach  of  all,  for  the  volumes  of  this  valuable  series  are 
published  at  sixpence  each." — E.  P.Juv.  Messenger. 

"This  is  just  what  a  'Bible  Class  Primer'  should  be,  transparent 
and  forcible  in  style,  abreast  of  the  scholarship  of  the  day,  and  yet 
avoiding  the  discussion  of  vexed  or  non-essential  questions." — Literary 
World. 

LIFE  OF  PAUL— 

By  the  Rev.  J.  Paton  Gloag,  D.D.,  Galashiels.     With 
Map.     Fourth  Thousand.     Cloth,  8d. ;  paper,  6d. 

"  Is  exactly  what  it  professes  to  be.  Is  full  of  the  results  of  reading, 
is  vsTitten  in  a  quiet  and  attractive  way,  and  combines  scholarship  with 
really  popular  art  in  treatment.  Useful  as  a  book  of  reference  or  for 
special  preparation,  it  is  also  a  book  to  read  systematically,  and  in  this 
respect  Dr  Gloag  has  scored  an  undoubted  success." — Outlook. 

"The  work  has  been  entrusted  to  competent  hands,  and  for  accuracy, 
condensation,  and  completeness  of  information,  this  little  book  could 
not  well  be  surpassed." — Daily  Reviezv. 

"A  model  of  accurate  condensation,  without  any  loss  of  vividness  in 
the  story." — Nonconformist  Gazette. 


132  PRINCES  STREET,  EDINBURGH. 


Books  published  by  Macniven  &'   IValiace. 

^iblc  QrUt00  ^rimcfS — continued. 
Edited   by   Professor   S ALMOND,    D.D. 

BIBLE  WORDS  AND  PHRASES  EXPLAINED  AND 
ILLUSTRATED— 

By    Charles     Michie,    M.A.,    Aberdeen.       Second 
Thousand.     i8mo,  Cloth,  is. 

"  Small  as  the  book  is,  it  yet  has  a  more  extensive  range  than  any 
of  its  predecessors.  The  book  will  be  found  interesting  and  in- 
structive, and  of  the  greatest  value  to  young  students  and  teachers." — 
AthencButn. 

"  Cannot  fail  to  be  of  service.  With  such  helps  as  these,  to  be  an 
inefficient  teacher  is  to  be  blameworthy. " — Sxvord  and  Trowel. 

"A  perfect  mine  of  knowledge." — Cong)-egatioitalist. 

"A  manual  of  great  accuracy,  completeness,  usefulness,  and  cheap- 
ness."— Literary  Wo7-ld. 

"  The  compiler  has  performed  his  task  in  a  most  satisfactory  manner, 
producing  a  manual  that  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every  reader  of 
the  English  Bible." — Glasgoiu  Daily  Mail. 

"A  boon  not  only  to  the  young  people  in  Bible  classes,  but  also  to 
Sunday  school  teachers,  and  even  to  ministers.  There  is  no  reader  of 
the  English  Bible  who  may  not  derive  profit  from  a  careful  study  of  this 
little  hand-book." — Christian  Leader. 

•'A  highly  commendable  work,  and  cannot  fail  to  prove  very  valu- 
able to  readers  of  the  Authorised  Version  of  the  Bible.  He  has  em- 
bodied the  result  of  his  investigations  briefly,  clearly,  and  pointedly." — 
Dundee  Adve7-tiser. 

"A  little  book  of  quite  extraordinary  merit.  We  venture  to  say  that 
it  will  take  its  place  as  the  book  on  the  subject  of  -wdiich  it  treats.  It  is 
a  book  which  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  all  students  of  the  English 
Bible,  and  will  no  doubt  retain  its  place  for  many  years  as  the  best  book 
on  Bible  Words  and  Phrases.  Every  one  who  reads  the  English  Bible 
ought  to  have  this  book  ever  close  at  hand." — Aberdeen  Free  Press. 


132  PRINCES  STREET,  EDINBURGH. 


Books  published  by  Macniven  &^   Wallace. 

^ibk  QrUt00  |)rimer0 — continued. 

Edited   by   Professor   SALMOND,    D.D. 

LIFE  AND  REIGN  OF  SOLOMON— 

By  the  Rev.  Rayner  Winterbotham,  M.A.,  LL.B., 

Fraserburgh.      With  Map.     Seventh  Thousand.     Cloth, 
8d.  j  paper,  6d. 

"  No  mere  dry  conspectus,  but  a  vivid  story  ;  and  its  liveliness  does 
not  interfere  in  the  slightest  degree  with  the  exact  and  full  statement 
of  the  facts  which  it  is  desirable  to  have  in  such  a  work." — Christian 
Leader. 

"  Excellent  in  design  and  production." — Christian. 

"  In  every  way  an  admirable  production,  full  of  the  compacted  results 
of  investigation,  expressed  in  a  clear  and  quiet  style." — General  Baptist 
Magazine. 

THE  KINGS  OF  ISRAEL— 

By  the  Rev.   W.   Walker,  M.A.,  Monymusk.      With 
Map.     Second  Thousand.     Cloth,  8d.  j  paper,  6d. 

"The  needful  qualities  of  caution  and  wide  research  are  combined 
with  independence  and  judgment  and  competent  scholarship  in  this 
modest  little  book.  Even  the  mature  divine  may  read  it  with  pleasure 
and  not  without  profit." — Glasgow  Daily  Mail. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  REFORMATION— 

By    the    Rev.    Professor    Witherow,    Londonderry. 

Cloth,  8d. ;  paper,  6d. 

JOSHUA  AND  THE  CONQUEST— 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  Croskery,  Londonderry.    With 
Map.     Cloth,  8d. ;  paper,  6d. 

THE  KINGS  OF  JUDAH— 

By  the  Rev.  Professor   Given,  Ph.D.,  Londonderry. 
Cloth,  8d. ;  paper,  6d. 


132  PRINCES  STREET,  EDINBURGH. 


Books  published  by  Macnivcn  &^   IVallcxce. 

EVANGELICAL  CLASSICS— 

Each  volume  contains  a  Memoir  of  a  Distinguished 
Evangelical  Author,  founded  on  a  Special  Study  and 
Extracts  from  his  ^Vorks.  Red  lined  Edition.  Printed 
by  Constable.  With  Steel  Engraving.  i8mo,  2s.  6d. 
each. 

Leighton.    Edited  by  the  Rev.  W.  Blair,  D.D.,  Dunblane. 

Bun  VAN,     Edited  by  the  Rev.  W.  Howie  Wylie, 

EVANGELICAL    SUCCESSION   (The)— 

Lectures  delivered  in  St  George's  Free  Church,  Edin- 
burgh, 1881-82.     CrowTi  8vo.     Price  5s. 

CONTENTS. 

Paul  the  Apostle.     By  the  Rev.  Principal  Rainy,  D.D. 
Augustine.     By  the  Rev.  Marcus  Dods,  D.D. 
CoLUMBA.     By  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Macphail. 
Anselm.     By  the  Rev.  Prof.  J.  Smith,  D.D. 
Bernard.     By  the  Rev.  Prof.  J.  M.  Lindsay,  D.D. 
WiCLiF.     By  the  Rev.  Principal  Brown,  D.D. 
Luther.     By  the  Rev.  Prof.  Salmond,  D.D. 
"  A  worthy  memorial  of  a  fine  course  of  lectures." — Literary  World. 

"It  is  eminently  a  healthy  book  to  read,  for  it  stimulates  thought  and 
it  strengthens  faith,  exhibiting  the  heights  of  sublimity  to  which  human 
life  inspired  and  sanctified  by  gospel  truth  can  attain,  and  setting  before 
a  generation  which  needs  to  be  reminded  of  the  Christian  heroism 
many  beautiful  examples  of  unswerving  devotion  and  fearless  courao-e. "" 
— Daily  Review. 

EVANGELICAL   SUCCESSION  (The)— Second   Series. 
Crown  8vo,  price  4d.  each. 

Calvin.     By  the  Rev.   Prof    Candlish,   D.D. 
Knox.     By  the  Rev.  R.  W.  Barbour,  M.A. 
Henderson.     By  the  Rev.  G.  W.  Thomson,  M.A. 
Rutherford.     By  Alex.  Taylor  Innes,  Esq. 
Leighton.     By  the  Rev.  Prof  Blaikie,  D.D. 
Baxter.     By  the  Rev.  James  Stalker,  M.A. 
ZiNZENDORF.     By  the  Rev.  Prof.  Binnie,  D.D. 

132  PRINCES  STREET,   EDINBURGH. 


Books  ptiblished  by  Macniven  £r=   Wallace. 

SCOTCH  STUDENT  (A).  Memorials  of  Peter  Thomson, 

M.A.,  Minister  of  Free  Church,  St  Fergus.      By  the 

Rev.    George    Steven,   M.A.,    Logieahiiond.      With 

Portrait.     Secotid  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  3s.  6d. 

"Since   Norman   Macleod's    'Earnest   Student,'   no  sketch  of  the 

deeper  side  of  student  life,  or  of  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  currents 

which  are  at   present    playing  around    the  minds  of  many  thoughtful 

men,  has  so  interested  us  as  this  graceful  and  touching  Memoir." — 

Christiati. 

SONGS  OF  REST— 

Edited   by   the    Rev.  W.    R.    Nicoll,    M.A.,    Kelso. 

Fourth  Edition  Revised.   Royal  24mo,  is.  6d. 
C SONNETS  BY  C AUTHORS— 

Edited  by  the  Henry  J.  Nicoll.     Royal  24mo,  is.  6d. 

"The  perfect  catholicity  of  the  collection  is  no  less  conspicuous  than 
its  good  taste,  and  the  lovely  little  work — a  marvel  of  cheapness  by  the 
way,  as  well  as  of  beauty — is  one  that  we  shall  often  take  down  from  its 
shelf  for  a  dip  into  its  treasures. — Glasgow  Daily  Mail. 
SOMERVILLE  (Andrew,  D.D.),  Foreign  Secretary  of 
THE  United  Presbyterian  Church.     Edited  by  the 
Rev.  Prof.  Graham,  D.D.     With   Portrait   on    steel. 
Crown  8vo,  5  s. 
"  Dr  A.  Somerville  is  well  entitled  to  a  niche  in  the  gallery  of  self- 
made  Scotsmen.     It  would  have  been  wrong    not  to  give  the  auto- 
biography a  wide  publicity." — Scots?nan. 

WORKS  BY  MARCUS  DODS,  D.D.— 

Isaac,'Jacob,  and  Joseph.  Third  Edition.  Crown  8vo, 
3s.  6d. 

The  Prayer  that  Teaches  to  Pray,  Third  Edition. 
Crown  Svo,  2  s.  6d. 

The  Epistles  of  our  Lord  to  the  Seven  Churches 
of  Asia.     Crown  Svo,  2  s.  6d. 

Manual  of  Devotion  from  the  Writings  of  ^St 
Augustine.     iSmo,  Leatherette,  2s.  6d. 

Old  Wells  Reopened.  A  Manual  of  Devotion  from 
Forgotten  Sources.     iSmo,  Leatherette,  2s.  6d. 

Presbyterianism  Older  than  Christianity.  A  Ser- 
mon.    Second  Edition.     Sewed,  4d. 


132  PRINCES  STREET,  EDINBURGH. 


i^>-^S' 


Date  Due 

(^^wa!«lpWfWW 

m 

PRINTED 

IN  U.  8.  A. 

